India, Egypt hope to enhance environmental cooperation: Kulshreshth

CAIRO - 1 November 2018: Indian Ambassador to Egypt Rahul Kulshreshth expressed his desire to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries through the implementation of the training program for economic and technical cooperation in various environmental fields, especially climate change.

India has been implementing this program in a number of African countries since April 2018 and would continue until March 2019, according to media reports.

Egypt's Environment Minister Yasmin Fouad said Wednesday, Oct. 31 during her meeting with Kulshreshth, who took post earlier this year, that India was the first country to cooperate with Egypt to transfer the Indian technology used in the biogas units used by people of some Egyptian governorates for domestic purposes.

Biogas is a renewable source of energy. It can be used as a fuel, or it can be placed in gas engines to produce heat and electricity.

Fouad invited Indian environmental companies to attend the Business Forum that is set to be held from November 24 to 25, on the sidelines of the 14th Convention of Biodiversity held in Sharm El-Sheikh.
The Red Sea city is set to be declared an environment friendly city during the United Nations Biodiversity Convention in November.

Fouad earlier expressed hope that the EU supports the efforts exerted to declare the city located in South Sinai a green city.

Biodiversity Convention
Sharm El-Sheikh will host the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 14).

In a meeting between Sisi, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, and the minister of environment in late July, Fouad reviewed the preparations for hosting the Biodiversity Convention, which will reportedly receive over 5,000 attendees from different member states.

The decision that Egypt will host the 14th meeting of the conference was taken by the participants in the 13th meeting of the conference in Cancun, Mexico, in 2016, during the term of former Environment Minister Khaled Fahmi.

Egypt is the second African country to host the conference. Kenya hosted the event in May 2000.
New ambassador, persistent relations
Rahul Kulshreshth, former Indian ambassador to Turkey, succeeded Sanjay Bhattacharyya, who finished his 3-year mission in Egypt earlier this year.

Total trade volume between Egypt and India reached $3.23 billion in 2016/2017, according to the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence & Statistics in Kolkata, India.

Bhattacharyya affirmed that trade between Egypt and India increased by 15 percent in 2017.

The most significant Indian exports to Egypt in 2016/2017 included beef, mineral oil and automobiles, while the main Indian imports from Egypt included petrol (63.67 percent of total imports), calcium phosphate and raw cotton.

Although Bhattacharyya said he thinks that trade between the two countries is somehow balanced, he said that he wants to see Egypt’s trade with India at a much higher level.
There are 50 Indian companies working in Egypt with a total investment of around $3 billion.