Cairo: India is keen on ramping up economic cooperation with Egypt, focussing on trade and investment, the Indian envoy here has said while underlining the need for “transparency and predictability” to woo more Indian businesses to this key Middle East country.
“Trade between India and Egypt increased by about 60 per cent over the last five years and this is really remarkable because you will notice that trade between many other countries has actually stagnated or even gone down and global trade itself is stagnating so this is a remarkable development,” India’s Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya told PTI.
With the participation of about 20 leading Indian companies, the third round of the Egyptian-Indian Business Council will be held on March 10 to discuss ways of boosting cooperation and investments between both countries especially in the fields of chemicals, leather, furniture and medicine. The round will be held on the sidelines of the joint trade committee, which will begin its meeting on March 9. Speaking about economic cooperation opportunities between India and Egypt, Bhattacharyya said economic issues should be viewed in totality. “For us it means that we must have more trade, we must have more investment flows, we must have more technology flows, we must have greater cooperation in developing skills and sharing each other’s experience and we will continue to work on all these together,” Bhattacharyya said.
“Along with a joint trade committee we have also a meeting with a joint business council, which will look at the possibilities of investments in different parts of Egypt including the Suez Canal Zone,” he said.
