Closer ties with Brazil

15.12.2011

I am glad to read the extensive coverage you have given in your distinguished newspaper this (yesterday) morning to the accreditation of Francisco Carlos Luz as the new Brazilian ambassador to Seychelles and to the fact that we may soon be able to visit this largest nation in Latin America, with one of the fastest growing economies in the world, without a visa.

I am sure that your readers would be interested to learn that only on November 29,  2011 Senator Marquezelliat the Grand Ball Room of the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Seoul, Korea, I had the distinguished honour and privilege of presenting the Good Governance Global Peace Award 2011 to a leading parliamentarian from Latin America who has shown singular dedication to the public interest in his long career in the Brazilian government.

Honourable Senator Nelson Marquezelli is a distinguished five-term legislator in Brazil’s national congress and current attorney general of the chamber of deputies. He has served as chairman of the Agriculture and Rural Policy Committee and has held leadership roles on congressional committees including consumer protection, the environment, public safety and organised crime, economic development, industry and trade.

A farmer and businessman, Hon. Marquezelli has been the official representative of Brazilian companies and farmers in business and trade negotiations in the USA, Spain, France, England, Italy and Portugal. He was in fact a member of the Brazilian delegation at the Food and Agricultural Organisation council of the United Nations in Brussels, Belgium and Rome in 1994. In October 2011 Senator Marquezelli presided over a solemn session of Brazil’s national congress which honoured the Global Peace Festival Foundation.

After the award ceremony I had the privilege of dining with Senator Marquezelli who has expressed a positive desire of visiting the Seychelles in the not too distant future. Now that we may not need a visa to visit Brazil, I am eagerly making plans to visit this great nation once again, as soon as possible, in 2012.

James R. Mancham