Minister of Trade and Industry Eng. Amr Nassar asserted that boosting the economic and trade relations with the EU come as a top priority of the ministry's plan to develop Egypt's foreign trade especially as the EU represents Egypt's first trading partner.

In this framework, the minister explained that Cairo is going to host the meetings of the Egyptian-European Sustainable Economic Development committee during the coming period, which comes as an output of the Egyptian-European Association Agreement to discuss developing the joint cooperation.

The minister said that Egypt attaches great importance to expanding the volume of joint economic relations with EU, pointing out that the Egyptian government recently approved granting investment incentives under the new investment law on expanding the existing investment projects encouraging the companies located in the Egyptian market, and injecting new investment projects.

In this regard, Nassar pointed out that Egypt keens to make a qualitative leap at the level of Euro-African cooperation, especially under Egypt's presidency of the African Union during 2019.

The minister explained that there is a great consensus between Egypt's vision for achieving the sustainable development of the African countries and the European side's goals and visions, especially in the fields of entrepreneurship, small and medium enterprises, supporting women and youth.

For his part, Ivan Sorkosh, the EU ambassador in Cairo, confirmed that Egypt represents one of the most important strategic partners of the European Union in the Middle East and Africa.

He added that the great efforts of the Egyptian government to improve the investment climate represent a fundamental pillar for promoting the European companies presence in the Egyptian market during the Coming period.

Sorkosh drew attention that the EU seeks for taking advantage of Egypt's presidency of the African Union to promote Euro-African cooperation, particularly under the Europe-Africa Alliance initiative launched last year.