Trade exchange bet. Egypt, Japan records $1.26B in 2018

CAIRO - 20 June 2019: Trade Exchange between Egypt and Japan marked an increase of 30.5 percent during 2018, recording $1.26 billion, compared to $969 million in 2017, according to Egypt's Ministry of Trade and Industry.

The Trade Ministry said in a statement that the most important Egyptian exports to Japan were oil, ready-made garments, carpets and cotton, while cars, tractors, machinery, electrical appliances, iron and steel, plastic and its products were the most important Egyptian imports from Japan.

The ministry emphasized the government's keenness to provide all kinds of support to the Japanese companies operating in the Egyptian market to attract more Japanese investments to benefit from Egypt's investment opportunities and distinguished position as a strategic hub for launching Japanese products into Arab and African markets.

The ministry referred to the importance of maximizing the benefit of the strong relations between the private sectors in Egypt and Japan to establish partnerships that pave the way for the start of a new phase in the Egyptian-Japanese strategic relations and achieve a qualitative leap in the joint cooperation between the two countries.

This came during a meeting held between Trade Ministry officials with Japanese Ambassador to Cairo, Masaki Noke, on the future of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries and Japanese investments in Egypt.

The ministry said that the meeting reviewed the Egyptian participation in the upcoming global economic summit of the G20, which will be held in Osaka, Japan at the end June, under the chairmanship of Egypt to the African Union.

Egypt is seeking effective participation in this summit, where a number of important issues between Egypt and Japan will be discussed and Egypt's experience in the comprehensive economic reform and its vision of ways to strengthen international efforts to push development efforts on the African continent will be reviewed, according to the ministry's statement.

"The Egyptian-Japanese relations witnessed a great momentum in the last period. In March, Cairo hosted the 11th meeting of the Egyptian-Japanese Joint Business Council and the Egyptian-Japanese Investment Forum with the participation of a large number of Japanese officials and businessmen," it said.

The statement added that the government is keen to promote economic, trade, industrial and investment relations between Egypt and Japan during the next phase and work on transferring the Japanese expertise to Egypt, especially in the industrial fields and the advanced technological sectors.

For his part, Noke said that the positive changes and economic reforms implemented by the Egyptian government have played a pivotal role in restoring the Egyptian economy's position as one of the most important in the Middle East and Africa region.

He pointed out that the Japanese business community is closely following the positive change in the Egyptian economy, which will help in stimulating the Japanese investor to inject new investments into the Egyptian market and expand existing projects.