Beacon Council cleans up on new business in Brazil, going back

Just back from a mission to Brazil that uncovered more than a dozen companies interested in expanding in Miami-Dade, the Beacon Council, the county’s economic development team, targets another mission there in late spring or early summer.

“Brazil, fortunately, is our number two market where we get deals from, after Spain,” said Rodrick Miller, council president and CEO. “We got over a dozen different companies that are interested in Miami coming out of that. They range from manufacturers, several of them are manufacturing, the food and beverage companies, software development companies. That was a very successful roadshow.”

For the Jan. 28-Feb. 4 mission to São Paulo, Goiania, Curitiba, Florianopolis, and Porto Alegre, “We went to Brazil with SelectUSA, which is the federal government’s economic development organization that focuses on bringing investments, and it was a very successful trip,” Mr. Miller said.

“Lots of interest in the US. Tatiana Silva, our chief of business development, went there.”

“We anticipate going back to Brazil one more time before this fiscal year is out, most likely sometime late spring or early summer,” he said.

The mission had two aims. One was to raise Miami’s profile, as always, but more importantly, the Beacon Council wanted to bring in deals.

“We got over a dozen companies that are real projects that have interest in expanding here,” Mr. Miller said. “Now, of course, we’ve got to close them, but that’s really the ultimate goal, to bring companies to Miami that will add to the opportunities for our residents and invest in that market.”

The next trip to Brazil probably won’t be with SelectUSA, said Mr. Miller, but with “more local partners.”

“We’re still working through the details of what that looks like,” he said, “but we want to build on the work that we’ve already done, I mean, and the … lift that we’ve already got. That’s the focus. It’s interesting that the opportunity of Brazil is so big because there’s so many interests that kind of overlap in terms of their market opportunities and sectors and what we’ve got.

“We’re still in the process of refining that, because we know that there are others in the market that are looking at going to Brazil too, and as much as possible, we want to be as coordinated as we can with the chamber [of commerce], with the ITC [Miami-Dade County International Trade Consortium] and other groups that are focused on development in Miami-Dade.”
The Beacon Council hasn’t yet sent a team to Europe this calendar year, said Mr. Miller, but it’s looking forward to upcoming conferences and trade shows.
A big upcoming conference is VivaTech in Paris from June 11-14, Mr. Miller said. “VivaTech is a very large technology show … and we’re going there this year because we believe there’s a lot of synergies and opportunities as it relates to tech out of Europe, and the opportunities here in Miami.

VivaTech, we’re excited about that trip.”

The annual SelectUSA Investment Summit in Washington, DC, said Mr. Miller, also is focused on global companies.

“We’ll go to DC and essentially try to bring many of the companies that have an interest in investing in the US to DC for a few days,” he said. “We’ll be meeting with them there, and we’re going to be doing a pre-event here in Miami prior to going to DC, where a lot of the companies before heading up to DC for the bigger show, they’ll come to Miami for a couple of days, and we will be showing them around. Last year we did this, and we had over 17 countries represented. We think this will be a good opportunity to bring folks and give them a real Miami tour.”

Despites changes in the past few months, Miami is gaining popularity and growing.

“We’ve got a new administration in and we’ve seen some changes,” said Mr. Miller, “some things happening as it relates to trade policy on the federal level, and what we’re seeing is, as the trade policy conversation goes on, there’s continuing to be lots of interest in Miami.

“We’ve seen just kind of an initial bump in interest in terms of global companies due to questions about accessibility to the US market. That’s really interesting, I think, in that we’re seeing all of the signs that … are pointing to: growth is going to continue to be strong for Miami.”