Eduardo González
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will resume today the official trip to Egypt that was suspended last August because of the evacuations from Afghanistan.
According to Moncloa sources, the visit of the President of the Governmen (who will be received tonight in Cairo by the Egyptian Prime Minister, Mostafa Madbuli, but whose agenda will be mainly developed tomorrow) will have a strong economic and business character. Spanish companies are particularly interested in investing in Egypt, a country with a hundred million consumers and the third African economy after South Africa and Nigeria, whose government has embarked on a series of development plans to relaunch its economy.
With this objective, Pedro Sánchez and Mostafa Madbuli will chair a Spain-Egypt Business Forum in which the Secretary of State for Trade, Xiana Méndez, and the Egyptian Minister of Trade, Nevine Gamea, will take part, as well as the president of CEOE International, Marta Blanco, and the general director of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, Inmaculada Riera. The event will also bring together the managers of the numerous companies accompanying the Chief Executive -some already installed in Egypt and others interested in investing in this country-, belonging to sectors such as water infrastructure, wind power and other renewable energy, railroads, aircraft or oil and gas infrastructure.
In addition, during Pedro Sánchez’s visit, the agreement for the renewal of the Financial Protocol between Spain and Egypt will be signed, as well as a declaration for the launching of the Spain-Egypt Economic Business Council to facilitate the presence of Spanish companies in the country. Spain is the fourth largest supplier to Egypt within the EU, after Germany, Italy and France, and the third largest destination of Egyptian exports also within the EU, after Italy and Germany.
Another objective of the trip is to relaunch bilateral relations with this important regional player for the stability of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East and for the promotion of the Euro-Mediterranean relationship. The institutional agenda of the trip, the first of a Spanish President of Government to Egypt since 2009, includes a meeting between Pedro Sánchez and the President of Egypt, Abdelfatah al Sisi. Sánchez and Al Sisi previously met in New York, on the margins of the 2019 UN General Assembly, and in Paris, during the recent conference on Libya, and held a telephone conversation last June, following the Prime Minister’s official visit to Tripoli.
After their meeting, the two leaders will read an institutional statement before journalists and will attend the signing of two memorandums of understanding on culture and on youth and sport and of the two economic agreements mentioned above. To conclude his stay in Cairo, Pedro Sánchez will meet with the Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, and will visit the Abu Rawash wastewater treatment plant, one of the largest in the world, built by the Spanish companies CC Construcción and Aqualia.
The official trip to Egypt, which was also to include a visit to Kenya, was suspended last August by Pedro Sánchez in order to follow from Spain the evolution of the evacuation process from Afghanistan.
