Egypt-Vietnam set to enhance collaboration, sign MoUs

CAIRO – 27 August 2018: Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang’s visit to Egypt is expected to lead to the signing of a number of Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) with President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in the fields of trade, industry and investment, Spokesperson Bassem Rady told Egypt Today. Quang is also set to meet with Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly and Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel Aal.

Following his visit, Nguyen Chi Dung, the Vietnamese Planning and Investment Minister, will visit Egypt to discuss opportunities in the SC-Zone. Previously, President Sisi had encouraged Vietnamese industrial sector to invest in Egypt, pointing out whilst addressing the Egyptian-Vietnamese business forum in Hanoi in 2017 that Egypt is one of the top countries for return on investment (ROI) in terms of incentives offered to investors. Sisi encourages and welcomed the idea of partnerships between Vietnamese industrialists and investors and their Egyptian counterparts.

Commenting on the Vietnamese President’s visit, Member of Parliament Emad saad said Monday that Quang’s visit implies the strong cooperation and partnership between the two countries in a multitude of fields and subfields, most notably investment and trade sectors.

President Quang’s visit aims to search possible developments in the economic, trade and investment field; the meeting also seeks to enhance cooperation opportunities in agriculture, culture and tourism fields, MP Hamouda said in a Monday statement.

MP Hamouda said that the visit comes in order to promote the trade exchange between the two countries. Vietnam wishes to make economic co-operations with Egypt in different fields, especially agriculture field, Hamouda announced.

On an international level, the Egyptian and Vietnamese Presidents are set to discuss the crisis in the Middle East and its effects on trade and investment within the region.

Vietnam has recently become one of the most powerful economic countries in the region; Egypt is considered to be Vietnam’s biggest trade partner in Africa.

Egypt and Vietnam have been in collaboration for 55 years.

Possible cooperation

Main fields tackled by both countries include developing fisheries, rice cultivation in areas of scarce water, and manufacturing ships, according to a previous statement by Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid.

Egypt is suffering water scarcity and passed a law to reduce water-intensive crops such as rice and sugarcane, and the country could be turned from a rice exporter to importer. Vietnam is the second largest rice exporter in the world after Thailand.

Abu Zeid added that that the two sides discussed communications and information technology, oil, gas and renewable energy, as well as small and medium enterprises. Egypt’s Al-Azhar University also agreed to increase the number of academic scholarships to Vietnam from three to 10 annually.

The Egyptian government and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Vietnam, signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), Abu Zeid continued, saying, “Egypt is interested in becoming a ‘Dialogue Partner’ of the association and hopes to receive Vietnam's support in this regard.”

The trade volume between Egypt and Vietnam increased to $377 million in 2017, compared with $266 million in 2016, at an increase of 41.7 percent, said Saeed Abdullah, head of the Trade Agreements Sector at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, on Sunday, Egypt’s state-owned MENA reported.

Egypt works on increasing the inflow of Vietnamese tourists

President Sisi met with Võ Văn Thưởng, head of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party's Central Committee’s Information and Education Commission and a Politburo member, on May 26, 2018. Sidi said that Egypt is keen to enhance mutual investments between both countries and to revive Vietnamese tourism to Egypt, said Egyptian presidential spokesperson Bassam Radi in a statement.

President Sisi welcomed Thưởng and his accompanying delegation, praising the bilateral relations between the two countries, which saw improvement during Sisi’s visit to Hanoi in September 2017, the statement added.

Thưởng expressed Vietnam’s keenness to follow up on the results of President Sisi’s visit, expressing his country’s appreciation for Egypt’s international and regional counterterrorism efforts to bring stability and safety to the Middle East.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met Thưởng and his delegation on Thursday, discussing ways of reinforcing the relations in all fields, said Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid in a statement.

Sisi’s visit to Vietnam in 2017

President Sisi made his first state visit to Vitenam after attending the ninth BRICS summit due to be held on September 3-5 in China’s Xiamen city.

Sisi will be the first Egyptian president who pays a visit to Vitenam in the history of the two countries.

Earlier on August 23, Sahar Nasr and Chairman of the Suez Canal Authority Mohab Mamesh met Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc who expressed willingness to further develop bilateral trade between both countries.

During the meeting, Mamesh presented investment opportunities in the SCZone in the fields of ships, fish farming, pharmaceuticals and food industries.

Sisi also urged the Vietnamese industrial sector to invest in Egypt, pointing out whilst addressing the Egyptian-Vietnamese business forum in Hanoi that Egypt is one of the top countries for return on investment (ROI) in terms of incentives offered to investors. Sisi encourages and welcomed the idea of partnerships between Vietnamese industrialists and investors and their Egyptian counterparts.

The pair also met with Vietnamese companies operating in communications and textile sectors, to present investment opportunities in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone).

During his visit, Sisi had hailed the Vietnamese development model that focuses on increasing the role of knowledge and maximizing technological innovation.

The Egyptian-Vietnamese business forum, according to MENA news, “was organized by the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce (FEDCOC) and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce” and was attended by a large number of senior Vietnamese officials and Vietnamese and Egyptian businessmen.

“The forum aims to probe ways of boosting bilateral economic and trade cooperation and explore available investment opportunities in Egypt,” wrote MENA at the time.