LATIMO: Brazilian businessman, Thomas Korontai was a guest of ours – we outlined our cooperation possibilities

After the short introductions Mr. Korontai presented the economic, commercial and cultural life of Paraná federal state. The capital of the 9-million state is Curitiba, there are 400.000 registered companies operating in the area of the state. They mainly deal in agricultural activities but the industry, manufactures and the service industry are also fairly developed.
There are Commercial Associations that are the equivalents of Chambers. The Commercial and Business Associations pool the companies on a voluntary basis.
The state of Paraná has created a governmental organization the name of which is “Making Paraná International”. Its main aim is to make connections with foreign organizations and companies, developing export, and the involvement of foreign investors in the development of local economic activities.
Within this organization Mr. Korontai was charged with the development of Hungarian connections, that is why he travelled to Hungary.
As a first approach it seems that there are cooperation possibilities in the field of environmental protection, water management, cleaning recessive waters. He asked us to suggest companies that operate in these areas.
He also mentioned that in August 2013 there will be economic, commercial, cultural, touristic and gastronomic days named “Hungarian Week” in Curitibában, where they want to involve the “Hungarian House” in São Paulo. Mr. Korontai expressed his hope that the Hungarian-Latin-American Union will take part at this event.
Mr. Sándor Balogh informed Mr. Korontai about the activities of the organizations he is president of, and that of the Professional Department. It is among our aims to utilize the business possibilities that the two countries can offer. After the change of the system, we somehow forgot about some of our very important partners from earlier and we concentrated almost entirely on European, North-American Chinese markets. These were important but it was a mistake to neglect our old African, South-American and Asian markets. Now it is much more difficult to boost this activity but it is our firm intention.
Mr. Sándor Balogh suggested that Mr. Korontai should meet the Chairman of the Hungarian Industrial Association responsible for water management. Mr. Korontai thanked him for the idea but this time it was not possible to include it in his schedule. Later he will make use of this advice and possibility.
Mr Sándor Balogh informed Mr. Korontai about his trip to Brazil with Mr. János Martonyi’s delegation in May. A delegation of high standing is expected to travel to Brazil again. LATIMO (Hungarian-Latin-American Union) might also be part of the delegation. Mr. Korontai suggested that the delegation should visit Curitiba which is only a few hundred kilometers from São Paulo.
Mr. Sándor Balogh offered that Mr. Korontai’s organization, or even his own company could post economic, business, commercial news on our organization’s website, which was appreciated by Mr. Korontai. The discussions were held in amicable atmosphere and the parties expressed their hopes that today’s meeting was a very good basis for developing relations.