THE GUIDE: How did you become Cyprus consul?
Dr Cesar Aguiar: I worked for the United Nations on the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAT), in Rome. I acted in Africa and the Middle East, and Cyprus used to be my base. I knew many people in that job, among them a business man called Vasilius, a successful business man in Saudi Arabia. He runned for the presidency of the Republic of Cyprus, and won. After his assuming office, he named me consul in São Paulo, being responsible also for the State of Rio de Janeiro and the region including the state of Rio Grande do Sul. At that time I used to do the registration of all documents in the conssulate and also Brazilian visas to Cyprus and Lebanese to Lebanon. (After the war it wasn’t necessary anymore to have visas to go to Cyprus anymore, which is menber of European Union today).

THE GUIDE: When started your participation on ACONBRAS?
Dr Cesar Aguiar: I associated in 1987. On that time the president was the consul of Malta, Mr. Italo baggio. I was his vice-president on the last three mandates. After his passing on June 27 of 2002, I presided over ACONBRAS until the elections, which took place on the following December. I was elected for my first mandate. In December of 2005 we did another election and I was re-elected for more three years.

THE GUIDE: What have changed in ACONBRAS?
Dr Cesar Aguiar: My board of directors was a cohesive team and we started a work of contacts for bigger divulgation of ACONBRAS, as well as we increased the number of accords for the benefit of the consulate body, principally in Sao Paulo. Among them, there is an agreement we did with museums and theatres, allowing special visits for our associates.
In many hotels we have differentiated fees. We also created the ACONBRAS website elaborated by our Senior Vice-President and Consul of Nicaragua Mr. Antonio Munhoz. Through this website, we created a public utility service offering not only to the Brazilians consuls but also to foreigners, a lot of information, not just about the city of São Paulo but also about specific services, like how to proceed in case of needs on airports, update about the consulate body, links to foreign newspapers and consulates in Brazil and inform our association activities schedule.

THE GUIDE: Does ACONBRAS do any social service?
Dr Cesar Aguiar: Every year we do a beneficient dinner in which the whole amount will be donated to charity, being all valour donated to a charity institution. Last year the donation was to The Solidarity Funds of State of Sao Paulo. For this year we are deciding who we will be coming for. Among our actions we will do a Van Premiére in one of the most traditional malls of Sao Paulo: the Shopping Iguatemi.
Two years ago we allowed the ladies consul association of Sao Paulo - ACONSP to get some space in our office. This association is presided over by Lebanon consul, Mrs. Sana Sayah and in ACONBRAS we have as our representative of ACONSP Mrs. Sandra Regina. This association do many beneficent works. Recently they donated equipments for the function of 40 bake houses to the solidarity funds of the state of Sao Paulo. This kind of activity was taken to Paraguay by the lady consul. Last year they also did a Van Premiére and the whole collected went to the same fund. We support the iniciatives of this association which is preparing an event called “Colar da Vida” (Life's Necklace). It will be an event that will assemble 30 chefs and 30 decorators which will prepare many ambiences for the deglutition of dishes, savouries and sweets. We are expecting 1000 payers and amount collected will go to the support against the breast cancer.

THE GUIDE: Is the ACONBRAS growing up?
Mr Cesar Aguiar: Yes, we are introducing the ACONBRAS to the consulates and increasing the number of associates not just from the consulate staff but also their agents. It's growing also the number of honorary members including many businessmen.

THE GUIDE: How is doing ACONBRAS in other states of Brazil?
Mr Cesar Aguiar: We have associates in many others states and we are creating regional directories for better organization of our job in many other regions. In Rio de Janeiro, for example, our region director is Mr. Sohaku Bastos, consul of Sri Lanka. The region director´s goal is to integrate the consuls into our association and do the same events that we do in Sao Paulo. We can extend artistic exhibition from Sao Paulo to other states, allowing the consul do social assistance with these events.

THE GUIDE: Does ACONBRAS keeps any relationships with foreign governments?
Mr Cesar Aguiar: Yes, and in several ways. We did an agreement with the Commercial Federation of the state of São Paulo looking for step up our bilateral business between the state of São Paulo and the foreign governments. We are having now permanent seats on the legislative forum of development of São Paulo Deputies Chamber and I consider it one of the biggest realizations of my mandate.

THE GUIDE: What are the future plans hold for your presidency?
Mr Cesar Aguiar: We looking for increasing our cultural, scientific and commercial actions.

THE GUIDE: How is it?
Mr Cesar Aguiar: The state of São Paulo has the USP, UNESP, and UNICAMP as state universities and 19 research institutes. Our job is made up to introduce the scientific institutions of São Paulo to the member countries, demanding therefore a growth of the techno-scientific accords. An example of this job was the visit of the ministry of agriculture of Ecuador to São Paulo looking for information about sugar cane for agricultural and energetic purpose. We did the integration between their committee and the institutes involved on this specific matter.

THE GUIDE: What ACONBRAS can do for the group of foreign diplomats which live in Brasilia?
Mr Cesar Aguiar: We have institutes and universities of the state; we can help the contact of the foreign diplomats with those organs going across their interesting. For example, we did the approximation of Angolans diplomats with the institute of technology of food-ITAL (abbreviation in Portuguese) in the city of Campinas. Recently we gave also support to the Nigerian government and business mission connected to the production of alcohol coming from cassava ( Nigeria is the biggest producer of cassava in the world).
The contact with us can be done by the embassy in Brasilia or by the consulate here.

THE GUIDE: What about the cultural and social aspects? What can be done?
Mr Cesar Aguiar: We can help them on the creation of events and cultural exhibitions of many countries, approaching them to different museums in Sao Paulo, as we have got an agreement with all of them.

I can mention as an example the approximation of the Chilean consulate with the Museum of Contemporaneous Art (MAC) of university of São Paulo, making an exhibition of Chileans artists. We also made up the contact with the MAC for the arrangement of an exhibition of those countries. One of the activities that I can tell about is the organization of exclusive visits of the members of the diplomatic body and the consulate to some cultural events. Recently we did a nocturnal visit to the São Paulo’s zoo, which is one of the few in the world that organize this kind of visitation. The specific schedule of the trip allowed us to have contact with animals of nocturnal habits such as the big felines. In our group was included our children and the associates relatives, and it had been so successful that we have many requests for the realization of another one.

THE GUIDE: What does the diplomat needs to associate with ACONBRAS?
Mr Cesar Aguiar: Manifested the interest, we will be sending an application form, which need to be filled and returned along with a picture. From there he will pay a monthly fee of R$ 66.00 and will get an association ID.

THE GUIDE: What message would you give to the foreign diplomats that live in Brasilia?
Mr Cesar Aguiar: Get to know ACONBRAS accessing our website www.aconbras.com.br and come to enjoy our events. This invite goes to all foreign staff of the diplomatic mission stabilized in Brazil. The ACONBRAS has the capacity of introduce not just Sao Paulo, but the Brazil to many interests that you may have in our country.
The diplomats stay in Brazil for about 4 years, and there are a lot to be seen. We can help them to know touristic areas such as Pantanal in Mato Grosso, or Cities like Bonito (we can send you some divulgation material). On the business side we can coordinate visits to big companies such as the airplane factory of EMBRAER. We can also give support on the other way round. An example happened last year when we gave support to the general Chile consul on the organization of a trip to Atacama desert on the north of his country. It was an action looking for promotion of the Chilean tourism.
Nowadays we are conjoining the general consul of Cape Verde Island in the realization of a caravan to the Cape Verde archipelago. We are willing to help the diplomatic community in Brasilia and we hope to fortify much more our relations.