Egypt, Japan discuss funding environment-friendly airports

CAIRO – 27 July 2022: Minister of Civil Aviation Mohamed Manar Enaba and Japan's Ambassador to Egypt Oka Hiroshi held talks Tuesday as JICA is funding Egypt's first environment-friendly building in an airport, which is Alexandria's Borg Al Arab.

The construction of the building comes within the country's strategy to turn Egyptian airports into environment-friendly ones by introducing reliance on renewable energy, and reducing carbon emissions.

Hence, the minister and the ambassador discussed potential future cooperation in that realm, including boosting the number of flights between Egypt and Japan.

Borg Al Rab's environment-friendly building spans over 34,000 square meters, and will have a capacity of five million passengers. It will also consist of 40 check-in counters, and 16 border control gates.

In a similar context that reflects Japan's interest in environment-friendly projects in Egypt, Ambassador Hiroshi had met with Minister of State for International Cooperation Rania al-Mashat in April to express interest in investing in the fields of blue hydrogen and ammonia through Toyota Tsushu Corporation, which already operates in the energy sector in Egypt.

The diplomat further noted that such partnership had been discussed with the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, according to a press statement by the Egyptian Ministry of International Cooperation.

Minister Mashat underlined that such collaboration between both countries is currently worth $2.8 billion, and includes 14 projects in the sectors of healthcare, electricity, transportation, navigation, education, higher education, and irrigation.

Mashat added that Japan has supported Egypt through the COVID-19 pandemic enabling it to acquire vaccine doses worth $250 million from COVAX. That is in addition to providing grants to procure medical equipment necessary to combat the spread of the virus.

In that context, Minister Mashat highlighted that in the coming period Egypt will benefit from Japan's leading experience in the field of universal health insurance along with that of France and the support of the World Bank Group.  

Similarly, Egypt and Japan are collaborating on the second phase of the fourth metro line. However, the minister expressed aspiration that Japanese private investments would increase in Egypt, particularly the sectors of priority.

On his side, the Japanese ambassador presented his country's preparations for the eighth Tokyo International Conference of African Development (TICAD) to be hosted by Tunisia on August 26-28.

Ambassador Oka Hiroshi also shed light on the bilateral cooperation, and trilateral cooperation with UNICEF to boost anti-COVID-19 vaccination in Egypt.

The minister and the ambassador agreed on expanding the annual economic talks between both states on the strategic level and not just on the technical one, which is a practice pursued by the Ministry of International Cooperation with international partners such as the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the African Development Bank (AfDB). 

Additional reporting by Noha El Tawil