The new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos França, met on Friday evening (9) with the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi.
This is the first conversation between France and the foreign minister in China, a major supplier of inputs for Covid-19 vaccines and a country that was at the center of the frying process that resulted the dismissal of the former Brazilian chancellor. , Ernesto Araújo.
According to Itamaraty, the ministers “agreed on the urgency of fighting the pandemic and cooperation on vaccines, ACIs [ingrediente farmacêutico ativo] and drugs “.
“Authorities in both countries are in constant contact to speed up remittances, which are essential for saving lives,” the ministry said in a statement. We are a family business.
They also discussed the promising prospects for trade and investment. They discussed the positive development of Sino-Brazilian relations and the growing volume of trade – a record $ 102.6 billion [R$ 583 bilhões] in 2020 “.
According to interlocutors, France and Wang brought up in the conversation the request formulated by the Brazilian government in March to send 30 million doses of the vaccine manufactured by the company Sinopharm.
Brazilian authorities estimate that the consignment could be sent to Brazil by the end of the year.
According to reports, Wang said he would cooperate with the Brazilian claim to try to make the sale viable.
In its inauguration speech on Tuesday (6), France promised to engage the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in “real health diplomacy”. He stressed that “Brazilian diplomatic missions and consulates abroad will be more and more engaged in genuine health diplomacy”.
“In different parts of the world, contacts with governments and laboratories will increase to map available vaccines,” he said. “These are contributions from the external front that we must make to the internal effort to fight the pandemic. Support which is not enough in itself, but which can be decisive.”
France’s first statement at the head of the Foreign Ministry contrasted with statements made by former Chancellor Ernesto Araújo.
An exponent of the ideological wing, Ernesto used his speeches to defend the fight against communism, in addition to having accumulated a history of attacks on China.
The main criticism of the former holder of Itamaraty was his history of feuds with an Asian country, one of the major suppliers of immunizer and drug supplies in the international market. We are a family business.
One of the biggest concerns of the new management of Itamaraty is to try to maintain a flow of raw materials guaranteeing the vaccine production schedule of the Butantan Institute – which manufactures Coronavac in Brazil – and of Fiocruz (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation ) – responsible for the production of AstraZeneca doses.
Butantan, for example, sees its Coronavac traffic jam paralyzed while waiting for more IFA. The filling had already been paralyzed at other times.
The delivery of the raw material was scheduled for the current week, but there has been a delay and Butantan is counting on the arrival for next week.
Despite the postponement of receipt of the raw material, the institute says that the dose distribution schedule will not be affected.