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Egypt-EU sign agreements worth €67.7bn

July 1, 2024 at 12:23 pm

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Kamal Madbouly speaks during Global Gateway Forum in Brussels, Belgium on October 25, 2023. [Dursun Aydemir – Anadolu Agency]

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly revealed yesterday that the regime signed agreements worth €67.7 billion euros ($72.6bn) at the end of the EU-Egypt Investment Conference in Cairo. The conference was held on Saturday and Sunday, in the presence of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

“This is the first major step in implementing the Egypt-EU Strategic and Comprehensive Partnership agreed upon by both sides during the Egypt-EU Summit in March 2024 in Cairo,” explained Madbouly. Several fields are covered, including politics and the economy, added the EU delegation in Cairo.

During the closing session of the conference, in the presence of the EU Ambassador to Egypt, Christian Berger, Madbouly said that Cairo aims to repeat this successful experience of the Egypt-EU Investment Conference annually in coordination with European partners. He pointed out that the second session would be held in 2025, without specifying the date.

“I am pleased to announce today that the conference witnessed the signing of 29 agreements and MoUs worth €49bn with companies affiliated with the European Union,” said the prime minister. “Six agreements and MoUs worth €18.7bn were signed with alliances and companies, either European non-EU entities or companies from different nationalities, aimed at exporting to the European Union.”

The agreements, he added, were signed at the private sector level or between the private sector and official Egyptian entities, achieving significant targets.

“Our primary focus in the coming period is to translate these signed agreements into actual projects on the ground,” Madbouly pointed out. “This will help support the Egyptian economy, increase foreign direct investments, and create more job opportunities for youth, positively impacting Egypt’s annual economic growth rates.”

In his speech at the opening of the conference, Al-Sisi said that relations between his country and the EU are witnessing positive development in various areas of cooperation. He added that this development was crowned with the signing of the political declaration, to develop relations between the two sides to the level of a strategic and comprehensive partnership last March.

In March, the EU announced that it would provide a financial package to Egypt amounting to €7.4bn ($8.06bn) between 2024 and 2027, and that the total European funding to Egypt in the past four years amounted to about $12.8bn.

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