Quintella: ‘The year 2024 will certainly be seen as a turning point, the year when it became clear how similar we are and how close we can be.’
From Malaysia to Brazil there are, depending on how you look at the map, either two oceans to cross or a whole continent and an ocean. Distant as they seem in geographical terms, our two countries share several features working in favour of a closer bond between them.
Both are multiethnic and multicultural. They have been able to keep intact a significant portion of their original forest coverage and are megadiverse countries.
Their leaders, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, strive to make the voice of the Global South heard, with the aim of helping create a more just international order.
This is turning out to be a terrific year for relations between Malaysia and Brazil.
On August 25, the Foreign Minister of Brazil, Ambassador Mauro Vieira, had a meeting in Putrajaya with his counterpart, Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan, and paid a courtesy call on the Prime Minister. During those discussions, it was striking to see how enthusiastic the two governments are about working together on issues such as the environment and climate change, health, science and technology, cultural exchanges, and to increment and diversify the already important bilateral trade.
Lula has invited Anwar to participate in the G20 Summit that will take place in Rio de Janeiro in November and to join the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty proposed by Brazil in its capacity as chair of the G20.
Since the beginning of the year, at the invitation of Brazil, Malaysia has already been participating in the G20, through the Environmental and Climate Change Sustainability Working Group and the Bioeconomy Initiative.
Malaysia is an important actor in the three areas announced by Lula as priorities for Brazil in its presidency of the G20: social inclusion and the fight against hunger, poverty and inequality; energy transition and sustainable development; and reform of global governance institutions.
Malaysia and Brazil launched almost simultaneously — in October 2023 and January 2024, respectively — new industrial policies.
October 2023 also illustrated the shared intention of cooperating in the field of semiconductors, with a webinar organized by the Embassy of Brazil. Much has happened since then, including, last May, the participation of Brazil, for the first time ever, in the SEMICON Southeast Asia, in Kuala Lumpur.
The visit to Brazil, last May, of Deputy Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Liew Chin Tong represented a milestone as conversations he had in Brasilia paved the way for much that has been discussed since. It was gratifying that the Deputy Minister visited, in Rio de Janeiro, the National Library, an institution with a two-hundred-year history. In June, it was my turn to be there, in order to donate copies of the book published by the Embassy of Brazil last January, A Brazilian in Kuala Lumpur: the KLCC Park and Roberto Burle Marx. That most central of Kuala Lumpur’s parks, designed by the most famous Brazilian landscape architect, stands as a symbol of unity and proximity despite all the oceans.
In November 2023, Malaysia was the first non-original signatory country to adhere to the United for Our Forests declaration, adopted at the Amazon Summit a few months before, in Belém do Pará. That is the same city, not coincidentally, where Brazil will host COP 30. Subsequently, in December, the Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability, Nik Nazmi, met with his Brazilian counterpart, Minister Marina Silva, creating a new impetus in the bilateral dialogue on the environment and climate change. We are particularly appreciative of Malaysia’s support for the mechanism proposed by Brazil, the Tropical Forests Forever Facility.
Two seminars organized in Kuala Lumpur by the Embassy of Brazil this year, one in March on Equitable Access to Medicines and another one, in July, on Energy, confirmed health and energy to be important fields of cooperation. Malaysia and Brazil are affected by the same tropical diseases and can work together in the health sector. Besides Petronas, other Malaysian energy firms have become important investors in Brazil, including in renewables.
This September, Brazil once again will organize a pavilion at the Malaysia International Halal Showcase (Mihas). As one of the world’s main agricultural producers and exporters of halal animal protein, Brazil honours and complies with the specific requirements of the Malaysian market. That was confirmed to Agriculture and Food Security Minister Datuk Seri Haji Mohamad Sabu, during his visit to Brazil in August. As a result of the meetings held by the Minister in Brasilia, a cooperation is envisaged, aiming at reducing the price of essential components of the Malaysian diet.
Also this September, the first ever bilateral Political Consultations Meeting will take place. We will thus have had, by the end of the year, the first visit by a Brazilian Foreign Minister since 2017, the first visit to Brazil by a Malaysian Prime Minister since 2003, and the very first Political Consultations Meeting. In the future, 2024 will certainly be seen as a turning point, the year when it became clear how similar we are, how close we can be.
The stage is set for 2025, when Brazil will chair BRICS and Malaysia will chair Asean.
Malaysians are the kindest, the most generous, the friendliest people. Come November, when Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim visits Brazil, he will find we can reciprocate. Brazilians will welcome him, and all Malaysians, always, with open arms.
Ary Norton de Murat Quintella Ambassador of Brazil to Malaysia.
The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
