Africa Opens Doors to World: Sisi

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi expressed his gratitude to president Vladimir Putin and Russian people for their warm reception and hospitality.

In his word before the 1st African-Russian summit, Sisi hailed Russia’s interest in enhancing cooperation with Africa via launching the Afro-Russian economic forum as a platform to offer various investment and trade opportunities, in a way that enhances interdependence and communication between both sides.

Moreover, the president added that the forum contributes to the development of the African continent in accordance with the vision of the African Union's development agenda 2063 and helps to explore new horizons of mutual cooperation.

“Our peoples’ aspirations should push us all to realize their legitimate hopes towards peace, stability, economic progress, and development,” Sisi said. “Africa opens doors to the whole world in order to achieve a qualitative leap in development and progress in various fields.”

In addition, Egypt’s head of state renewed call for Russian and international private sector institutions to invest in Africa, in order to achieve African peoples' dreams in progress, and sustainable development.

Sisi also added that cooperation with African countries should be based on common interest principle, within a framework aimed at supporting the comprehensive and sustainable development of the African continent through three pillars; accelerating economic transformation, improving the business climate through genuine partnership with the private sector, achieving social justice and community participation, as well as promoting peace and stability in accordance with the African Vision 2063 and the UN sustainable development goals 2030.

The president expressed hopes that this platform would achieve more cooperation between the African and Russian sides at various levels in the upcoming years.

Noteworthy, the first African-Russian summit kicked off, earlier Wednesday, in Sochi under the slogan of “Russia and Africa: Uncovering the Potential for Cooperation”.

The three-day summit is co-chaired by Sisi and Putin.