 "'Relationship between India & Egypt has got a new momentum'")
India is keen on ramping up economic cooperation with Egypt, focussing on trade and investment, the Indian envoy at Cairo 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% 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 heldon March 10 to discuss ways of boosting cooperation and investments between both countries especially in the fields of chemicals, leather, furniture and medicine.
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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.
"Business will always flow where there is an opportunity for profit and if you can provide an environment for profit business will come," Bhattacharyya said.
However, there are also at the same time several macro issues that every business propositions will look at, he said.
"These are particularly pertaining to the foreign exchange situation, the ease of repatriation, the regulations on the investment laws and their implementation. So once there is transparency and predictability on these fronts and they are implemented in an easy manner there will be great opportunities," Bhattacharyya said.
"I have travelled to many of the governorates of Egypt. Two-thirds of Indian investments are already along the Suez Canal in other words Indian investors had long ago realised the huge potential of the Sue Canal area as a hub and I've been to Port Said and Ismalia and Ain Soukhna, where there are Indian investments and I found that the local authorities over there have been very very helpful in many instances to Indian investors," he added.
Bhattacharyya said the joint trade committee will discuss different issues including ways to increase trade between both countries.
"I think the potential is much greater because there are other countries in the region around Egypt who have much higher trade with India so what is it that prevents us from having even greater trade," he added.
The envoy said that in order to enhance trading cooperation between the two countries, a number of things need to be looked at.
"I think we need to look at the tariff structure, also we need to look at are there any barriers to trade, we also need to see as to how we can promote complementarities; for instance agriculture products have been increasing in Egypt's exports to India we are buying much more of agriculture products from Egypt may be this is an area in which the growth can be even greater," he said.
"On investments, I think the picture, in a sense, is very good because we have about 50 Indian enterprises in Egypt with a total investment of about USD 3 billion and if you look at it in terms of the non-hydrocarbon sector it is a very large investment," the Ambassador said.
