MOSCOW: Trade exchange between Cairo and Moscow reached $5.5 billion in 2014, an 80 percent increase compared to 2013, as a result of the increase in Egypt’s agriculture exports to Russia, said Russia’s Industry Minister Denis Manturov.
President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and Egyptian Minister of Industry Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour met with Manturov, Russia’s ambassador to Cairo, and the Russian deputy-minister of finance.
Manturov added that 3 million Russian tourists came to Egypt in 2014, and that there are new means to be developed to increase this figure.
Sisi assured that Egypt is always welcomes Russian tourists and hopes to double this number.
The Russian minister presented some new cooperation ideas; such as establishing a storage center, trading Russian wheat within and from Egypt to neighboring markets.
“Air transportation, drugs production, new metro lines manufacturing and of Russian cars’ assembly centers are all new prosperous fields of cooperation between the two countries,” said Manturov.
Egypt’s presidency spokesperson, Alaa Youssef, said that Sisi encouraged the immediate commence of the joint projects; given Egyptian trained labor, the location of Egypt that enables it to be an Arab and African gate, representing a huge market for ] Russian products.
The meetings also tackled the latest developments of establishing a free trade zone between Egypt and the Eurasian Customs Union (EACU) that includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia.
On May 9, Sisi visited Moscow to participate in a celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Russian end of World War II (WWII).
Bilateral relations between Russia and Egypt have deepened politically, military and economically; the strengthened ties began when Sisi signed a $2 billion weapons deal with Russia following the partial suspension of U.S. military aid to Egypt in 2013, when he was the Egyptian Defence Minister.
Following the Egypt Economic Development Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh on March 13-15, Kirill Dmitriev, Chief Executive Officer of the Russian Investment Fund announced that Russian Investments in Egypt reached $7 billion.
