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Egyptian-Chinese Entrepreneurs Association (ECEA) was launched on Tuesday at a ceremony in the New Administrative Capital.
Present at the launch were Minister of Finance, Mohamed Maait; Minister of Public Business Sector Mahmoud Esmat; Former Secretary General of the Arab League and the honoury President of ECEA Amre Moussa; CEO of The Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE) Ayman Soliman; Head of ECEA’s Board of Trustees Magd El-Din El-Manzalawy; Omar Wang, President of ECEA and Mohamed Alaa, ECEA’s Secretary General.
Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait said the ECEA will serve as a platform for dialogue between the business communities of the two countries and exploration of investment opportunities in priority areas identified by the government including green transition, renewables, pharmaceutical industry, scientific research and advanced industrial technologies.
The minister also underlined the importance of the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZONE) in terms of reinforcing Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through the China-Egypt Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone (Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area or TEDA) leveraging the Suez Canal zone’s status as a logistics-economic hub.
“Through launching ECEA, we are looking forward to jointly working to eliminate any kind of investment obstacles and attracting more of Chinese investments into the Egyptian market,” said Maait.
Former Secretary General of the Arab League and the Honorary President of ECEA Amre Moussa sought greater Chinese investments in technology industries and Artificial Intelligence, adding that BRI projects in the Arab world have shifted the mindset from colonial thinking to cooperation.
TSFE’s Ayman Soliman said the fund supports efforts to attract more investments into the Egyptian market, especially in industrial, manufacturing sectors and particularly food processing as Egypt has a huge agricultural production that need more investments.
Head of ECEA’s Board of Trustees Magd El-Din El-Manzalawy said ECEA will enhance the bilateral relations between the two countries by encouraging collaboration between the business communities in the two countries under BRI.
He said the platform aims to create a good climate for Chinese investments in Egypt while achieving the government’s vision of localising priority industries.
Egypt’s Ministry of Social Solidarity gave the green light to the establishment of ECEA as a legal identity on 22 February 2022.
(Writing by SA Kader; Editing by Anoop Menon)
