Brazilian Ambassador Paulo Fernando Dias Feres has said that it is “possible” to get live cattle from Brazil, but the process is “complicated”.
He offered meat and other support to develop the industry in Bangladesh.
The ambassador was talking at the DCAB Talk organized by the Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh (DCAB) at the Jatiya Press Club on Thursday.
State Minister for Commerce Ahsanul Islam Titu made the request when Brazil foreign minister Mauro Vieira visited Bangladesh on April 7-8, first by any Brazilian foreign minister since independence, to send live cows before the Eid-ul Adha which will be celebrated in mid-July.
The ambassador replied to the questions related to the bilateral relations, regional and global issues at the event with DCAB President Nurul Islam Hasib in chair. DCAB General Secretary Ashiqur Rahman Apu also spoke.
He said Brazil has a huge potential in the meat sector in Bangladesh.
Brazil is a major exporter of beef, presenting a promising opportunity for trade with Bangladesh. Both parties will benefit from this. As the geographical distance between Brazil and Bangladesh is very high, importing live cows is difficult and complicated but not impossible.
He said given Bangladesh’s population and the demand for rice cultivation; it is difficult to have enough space to raise Brazilians cows.
“It's more complicated because you need a lot of space to have cattle. Even if you confine the cattle, you need to give it some space.
“If you want to have a healthy cow, you cannot have her in a very restricted space. She needs some space so that she can produce all the milk she is capable of. If you do this wrong, she will be weak. If you consider the cattle for the meat market, it's more or less the same thing.
“Even if you confine the cattle, you will still need to give each animal some space. And that's what you don't have here,” he said.
“Brazilian producers can export cattle like that. It's possible by June. I don't know whether they are sending it, but they do it,” he said, replying to a question.
He said there are four government slaughterhouses in Dhaka, which are all in a very bad shape.
“This is an area where we could also think of something like Brazil. In Brazil, this sector is very important and very rich. So they have all the means and all the resources to help Bangladesh get this better,” he said.
“You take advantage of this close friendship and all the good we have from one country to another. For Bangladesh it would be great to have Brazilian-like technology for meat storage. This is another possibility,” he said.
During the Brazilian foreign minister’s visit, the meat export issue also came up.
But, the discussion did not progress due to sanitary certificate clearance from the Bangladesh side.
The government says it follows the WTO rules, while Brazil exports meat across the world including the middle-east countries maintaining its own standards.