Celso Amorim, Brazil's Minister of Foreign Relations confirmed during the International Conference for Lebanon (Paris III), that the Brazilian government was giving US$ 1 million to that country to finance reconstruction projects.
According to information provided by the Ministry of Foreign Relations, this is the second donation from Brazil to Lebanon. Last year, US$ 500,000 were donated during the Conference in Stockholm.
In his address at the Paris Conference, Amorim stated that the international community must also work for democracy in Lebanon:
"If, on the one hand, the strengthening of democratic Lebanese institutions depends – as it should – on the Lebanese, the political rebuilding of the country cannot take place without the support of the international community."
According to Argentine news agency Télam, French prime minister Jacques Chirac claimed that the international community has committed to donating US$ 7.6 billion to Lebanon.
Other donators, according to the agency, include the United States (US$ 770 million), Saudi Arabia (US$ 1 billion), the United Kingdom (US$ 48 million), France (US$ 650 million) and Germany (US$ 134 million), among others. The World Bank and the European Commission have committed to donate, respectively, US$ 1 billion and US$ 519 million.
The Ministry of Foreign Relations informed that Brazil has projects for cooperating with Lebanon in the fields of agriculture, health, education, professional training and the banking sector.