Although separated by oceans and language, Brazil and Malaysia are more similar than most people will realise. We sit down with the Ambassador of Brazil to Malaysia Ary Norton de Mura Quintella to ask him about trade, culture and unexpected connections.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 (soft music)
00:02 (soft music)
00:04 (soft music)
00:08 (soft music)
00:10 (soft music)
00:12 (soft music)
00:16 (soft music)
00:20 (soft music)
00:23 (soft music)
00:27 (soft music)
00:31 (soft music)
00:34 (soft music)
00:39 (soft music)
00:42 (soft music)
00:45 (soft music)
00:49 (soft music)
00:53 - You mentioned something very important.
00:55 There are strong similarities between President Lula
00:59 and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim,
01:02 both in terms of personality and life history,
01:06 and also in terms of social policies and objectives.
01:11 And I can foresee that in the short term and the midterm,
01:16 definitely the two countries will develop
01:19 a much bigger presence in each other's frame of mind,
01:22 so to speak.
01:24 Because in the end, when you look at the map,
01:26 Malaysia seems so far away from Brazil
01:28 or Brazil seems so far away from Malaysia.
01:31 But I can tell you, for example,
01:32 that I've never met a Brazilian in Malaysia
01:34 who wasn't extremely happy here.
01:37 There's so much in common between Brazil and Malaysia,
01:39 much more than you could imagine
01:41 if you look just at the map.
01:42 (soft music)
01:46 (soft music)
01:50 (soft music)
01:53 (soft music)
02:02 In the last few years, Malaysia has become
02:05 a very important trade partner for Brazil.
02:07 Malaysia, in fact, we sell more to Malaysia
02:10 than to most European and South American countries,
02:14 with the exception in the case of South America,
02:17 of Argentina and Chile.
02:19 We sell more to Malaysia than to Peru or Colombia,
02:22 Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay.
02:24 So that's very impressive.
02:26 (soft music)
02:28 (soft music)
02:30 (soft music)
02:36 (soft music)
02:42 (soft music)
02:49 (soft music)
02:56 (soft music)
02:58 It has its ups and downs.
03:07 Last year, it was a little bit lower
03:11 than the trade in 2021, for example.
03:15 So it does have its ups and downs,
03:17 but I think that as the two countries
03:19 get to know each other better,
03:21 and as the two countries begin to invest more,
03:24 bilaterally, definitely new areas of trade open up.
03:29 (soft music)
03:32 (soft music)
03:39 (soft music)
03:45 (soft music)
03:52 (soft music)
03:54 (soft music)
04:02 (soft music)
04:10 (soft music)
04:18 (soft music)
04:20 (soft music)
04:28 (soft music)
04:35 (soft music)
04:42 (soft music)
04:44 So it's very interesting culturally,
04:59 because you have a park that is the typical park
05:02 created by a very famous Brazilian landscaper,
05:06 but using local plants.
05:08 If you go to Brazil,
05:10 Roberto Burle Marx was responsible
05:13 when Brasilia became the capital in 1960.
05:18 Roberto Burle Marx was the landscaper
05:20 who designed all the main public gardens of Brasilia,
05:24 including the hanging gardens
05:27 of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brasilia.
05:30 And he also designed a very famous park in Rio.
05:34 He worked in several countries in the world,
05:35 but the reason why I thought
05:37 when I reached Kelsey for the first time,
05:39 and I looked through my window,
05:40 I felt like I was maybe in Sao Paulo,
05:42 it's because of the park.
05:43 Because even though the plants were new to me,
05:46 the design of the park was recognizably Brazilian.
05:49 (soft music)
05:51 (soft music)
05:56 (soft music)
06:02 (soft music)
06:09 (soft music)
06:11 Because in 2025, Malaysia will chair ASEAN,
06:15 and Brazil will be the host of COP30.
06:19 And I think we should start now discussing
06:23 exactly how to work more closely together
06:27 in relation to climate change and biodiversity.
06:30 And what I proposed to the Minister
06:31 of the Environment of Malaysia was
06:33 for us to start creating maybe webinars
06:37 of good practices between Brazilian officials
06:40 and Malaysian officials,
06:42 or even promoting better interaction,
06:46 more interaction between Malaysian NGOs
06:48 and Brazilian NGOs,
06:50 or exchange of practices on how to deal
06:53 with biodiversity and climate change.
06:56 (soft music)
06:58 (soft music)
07:00 (soft music)
07:03 (soft music)
07:05 (upbeat music)
07:08 you