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Game, set, invest: Sharjah courts Brazilian and Portuguese businesses through padel
Sheikh Fahim Al Qasimi, Chairman of the Department of Government Relations and the Higher Committee for Economic Integration in Sharjah, says overall social connection is an important facet of life
- PUBLISHED: Fri 3 Jul 2026, 5:59 AM
Outside of the typical work meetings, boardrooms, and unriveting business encounters, Sharjah’s investment office hosted a business meeting in an atypical environment – on a padel court.
The Sharjah FDI Office (Invest in Sharjah), along with other Sharjah governmental entities, brought together senior leaders from the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (CCAB), the Portuguese Business Council, and even the Consul-General of Japan in Dubai.
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Sheikh Fahim Al Qasimi, Chairman of the Department of Government Relations and the Higher Committee for Economic Integration in Sharjah, said the goal was to have a bit of fun while potentially striking business deals.
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“It's super important is that when you're choosing to invest in a place or build a business in a place, you're not only thinking about just the success of your business, but you're thinking about quality of life,” Al Qasimi told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the padel event.
While using sports as a diplomatic or soft power tool is not unique to Sharjah or the UAE, Al Qasimi said that the overall social connection is an important facet of life.
“On the sidelines of these paddle games, people will be coming to me and presenting challenges or maybe opportunities for me to support them in government policy,” the royal added.
Currently, around 193 Brazilian and 267 Portuguese companies operate in Sharjah, across both mainland and in its free zones. The South American country is a significant trading partner, being the largest in Latin America, with exports to the UAE reaching around $3.78 billion in 2025.
Of those Brazilian and Portuguese companies, Mohammed Juma’a Al Musharrakh, the CEO of Invest in Sharjah, said that sectors most prevalent are in infrastructure and logistics.
In February, the FDI office hosted a similar business networking event with the American Chamber of Commerce, which Al Musharrakh said helped the emirate with building relationships between Sharjah and US companies in the UAE.
“We hope the same from organizing this event where we believe that sports and doing sports between businessmen from Sharjah and Portugal and Brazil today will help in building a lot of business connections between Sharjah and Brazil and Portugal,” he said.
Rafael Solimeo, the director and head of Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, also spoke of Sharjah’s attractive business opportunities for oncoming Brazilian companies, especially those in technology, innovation, and construction.
The Chamber has been active for over 73 years to connect the Arab world with Brazilians and promote economic, social, and cultural development.
“Sharjah is a great place for new Brazilian companies to arrive when they come to the UAE,” he said, adding that an event such as this provides an element of “soft power”, which is attractive for Brazilians as they are attached to sports, he said.
Solimeo, who is also Secretary General of the Brazilian Business Council, said that while he currently lives in Dubai at the moment, he keeps coming back to the Sharjah for the rapidly developing business scene.
Hind Aldah is a business reporter based in Sharjah. In her spare time, you will find her playing classical guitar, painting amateur oil paintings, or crocheting the same old scarf that leads nowhere.