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Brazil City and Atlanta Centers to Train Municipal Officials February 2006 – Transportation is one topic on which CIFAL Atlanta and its sister office in Curitiba, Brazil, will be collaborating on to conduct training programs for local authorities throughout the Western Hemisphere, according to Brazilian federal congressional member André Zacharow who visited Atlanta on Jan. 31.
Mr. Zacharow, who represents in the Brazilian House of Representatives the state of Paraná where Curitiba is located, stopped in Atlanta on his way to Washington where he was to talk with members of Congress and President Bush about trade and immigration issues. He is neither a trustee of CIFAL Atlanta nor of CIFAL Curitiba, but is a strong supporter of the organizations’ efforts, said Axel Leblois, CIFAL Atlanta’s executive director. While in Atlanta, Mr. Zacharow attended CIFAL Atlanta’s board of trustees meeting, as well as met with members of the Georgia General Assembly’s Economic Development Committee. “We have requested to collaborate together on projects,” Mr. Zacharow told GlobalAtlanta about Curitiba and Atlanta working on joint projects to train municipal authorities on various city governance issues. “We [Curitiba] have great experience with transportation, solid waste management and city planning,” he said in an interview. Brazil’s transportation experience in controlling air pollution and reducing dependence on imported fuels through “biodiesel,” or ethanol fuel made from sugar, soy or oils for use in cars, is a theme Atlanta and Georgia may be interested in more generally, Mr. Zacharow said. Made from sugar, ethanol is widely used as an alternative to gasoline for cars in Brazil, accounting for 20 percent of the country’s transportation fuel market. Seven out of every 10 new cars sold in Brazil run on ethanol or a mixture of ethanol and gasoline. Mr. Zacharow said that Brazil is to be 100 percent self-sufficient this year in supplying its own energy by producing ethanol and drilling for oil. Ethanol produced from sugar costs approximately $1 per gallon to make in Brazil. Currently, ethanol made in the United States, which is derived mainly from corn, costs 30 percent more. The U.S. aims to double its use of ethanol by 2012, and Brazil may be a good source to buy the cheaper sugar ethanol. Brazil exported $600 million of ethanol in 2005, with the majority going to Japan and Sweden, and expects to export some $1.3 billion of ethanol by 2010. If the World Trade Organization can help U.S. and Brazilian trade negotiators arrive at a common position through mutual concessions on U.S. subsidies on agriculture, energy and other products may be more easily traded, Mr. Zacharow said. A hemisphere-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas may be possible in the future as well, he said. “The FTAA is necessary for the economic fortitude of Latin America. There are political problems, but [hemispheric] economic cooperation is fundamental,” he said. Mr. Zacharow has been an elected federal representative in Brazil’s national congress since 2002. He is a member of the congress’ constitutional affairs, defense and security, energy, foreign affairs and social security committees. He is also a member of the United Nations Task Force on Corruption Affairs and a member of the U.N. Commissions on Social Security Issues, Tax and Fiscal Reform. Mr. Zacharow is chairman of the Development Co. of Curitiba, the International Center of Software Technology and the Institute of Providence of the State of Parana. He is an emeritus professor of Brazilian economics at the Federal University of Paraná and was an official observer in Georgia of the 2004 U.S. elections. Visit CIFALAtlanta.org for more information or call (404) 962-4840. Source: Leigh Miller for GlobalAtlanta |
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