Egypt's Sisi, COMESA secretary-general discuss intra-trade, cross-border infrastructure

 

CAIRO - 23 November 2021: Egypt will spare no effort to develop the agenda of COMESA, especially economic and regional integration, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi told the secretary-general of the bloc on Tuesday.

 

Egypt will cooperate with the secretariat of  the Common Market for East and South Africa to arrive at the goals of the Egyptian presidency of the economic bloc for the term and accomplish the 2063 development agenda of Africa as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Sisi told Secretary-General Chileshe Kapwepwe.

 

For her part, Kapwepwe said Egypt, one of the founding coutries of COMESA, has its own weight in Africa, and that the secretariat will support Egypt leading teamwork in the continent, especially in terms of infrastructure and intra-trade, according to a statement by presidential spokesperson Bassam Rady.

 

Sisi's meeting with Kapwepwe also tackled enahcing regional supply chains, maximizing industrial integration, investment in cross-border infrastructure and collective interconnection projects, digital transformation, sustainable production techniques, and means to counter the implications of Covid-19 pandemic. 

 

They also discussed ways to maximize the benefit of COMESA's participation in the Continental Free Trade Agreement and the free trade agreement between the three blocs of COMESA, the Southern African Development Community, and the East African Community.