Indian Amb. Delivers Speech at India-Egypt Business Council

Indian Ambassador to Egypt Ajit Gupte delivered a speech at the meeting of the India-Egypt Business Council (IEBC). The ambassador’s remarks came as follows:

Distinguished members of the India Egypt Business Council,

Good morning.

I would like to thank the India – Egypt Joint Business Council for inviting me to address the 5th IEBC Meeting which is being held for the first time since 2016. The long break, compounded by the Pandemic which saw travel restrictions come in place across the world has been a stumbling block for trade across the world. I am happy to note that at the worst of the Pandemic year which was in 2020-21, India-Egypt’s overall bilateral trade reduced less than 10% compared to the the pre pandemic year in 2019-20. It is now heartening to see that business activities have resumed in a significant manner in Egypt and with the recent changes in relaxing of all Covid-19 restrictions, I am confident that we can soon see an expansion in the long pent up economic and business collaboration between our two countries, not to mention bilateral tourism, as well as between people of our two great nations.  

 

Friends,

Since ancient times, our civilizations have been interacting with each other. While gold, ivory and spices were traded then, now it has been petroleuIndia - Egypt Business Council (IEBC)m products, meat, engineering goods and fertilizers that have dominated our bilateral trade. I am happy to mention that during the last financial year 2021-22, our bilateral trade reached a historic record high of USD 7.26 bn which is an increase of 75% over FY 2020-21. Notable to say, Egypt’s exports to India increased by 86% and Indian exports to Egypt increased by 65% Year-on-Year. This year, during the first two months of April and May 2022, there is a 14% increase in overall bilateral trade with respect to the record figures we achieved in FY 2021-22. We need to capitalize on these numbers going forward because I believe the potential is much higher than this.  

 

Apart from growing trade, it is encouraging to note that Egypt is one of the most important investment destinations for India in the region. With an existing investment of USD 3.15 bn, Indian companies are looking forward making additional investments of nearly USD 700 mn in the next few years. This shows the level of confidence Indian companies has placed in Egypt under the leadership of HE President Abdel Fattah El Sisi for making Egypt an attractive market for Indian companies. 

 

Indian companies have also executed important projects in Egypt. L&T successfully completed Toshka 2 – Wadi Halfa 220 kV double circuit overhead transmission line project. Previously, L&T executed 500kV / 220 kV GIS substation projects for Egypt Electricity Transmission Co. in Ain Sokhna and Ras Ghareeb and 220kV overhead transmission line from Safaga to El-Qusair. These projects were worth a total of US$ 133.3 million. Sterling & Wilson (S&W) has built a cumulative capacity of 250 MW of Solar PV plants in 5 projects in As-wan worth a total of US$ 250 million, in addition to a data center project worth US$ 3 million. In February 2020, the company was awarded contract to set up cloud data center for Telecom Egypt in a US $30 million deal apart from a US$ 2 million worth Data Center deal with Vodafone Egypt. In December 2020, S&W took over the Kom Ombo solar park project from Mahindra Susten following the latter’s withdrawal. In October 2021, Nuberg EPC was awarded 500 TPD Sulfuric Acid Plant Project worth between US$ 50-100 million, its sixth turnkey project in Egypt.

 

Indian owned company, M/s Vatech Wabag is currently working on 10 projects of water treatment in Egypt for different Egyptian entities bringing the total number of projects to 20.  Around 8000 acres of desert land have been converted to a green belt using recycled water by Vatech Wabag. The largest project completed by the company is the Water Treatment Plant for Suez Canal Authority in Port Said with a capacity of 133000 Cu M3/day.

 

I take this opportunity to encourage Indian companies to invest in Egypt and make use of the several FTAs Egypt has with regional trading blocs and companies. Sectors like pharmaceuticals, chemicals, medical devices, renewable energy projects, fisheries, fertilizers, construction equipment etc. are prospective areas where Indian companies could look at and expand their global footprint. I also urge Egyptian companies to look at investing in India especially in the field of IT, FinTech, Engineering equipment, food processing, auto spare parts, etc. I would take this opportunity to encourage our Egyptian Business Community to tap the large Indian market and also make use of several schemes of the Govt of India like the Production Linked Incentive Scheme and others. I would also remind the Egyptian companies that India has a very strong and vibrant Start up sector which has given rise to several Unicorns (USD 1bn plus valuation companies). 103 Unicorn companies valued at over USD 330 bn as on June 2022. It would be beneficial for Egyptian companies to invest in the Start Up sector in India, which could then be used to bring in Indian Technology to Egypt and to rest of Africa which I believe is still under-served by technology enabled applications. Recently, in the education sector, El Sewedy University of Technology has partnered with Indian owned Amity University in Dubai to bring in highest quality technical education systems of India to Egypt. Therefore, the potential for collaboration is immense between India and Egypt.

 

Friends,

India and Egypt share many commonalities. We both have a large and young population with a significant share of our workforce depending on agriculture and allied sectors. Our countries face similar challenges like issues of food security as a result of climate change, demand for cleaner and greener power, pressure on agricultural land, improving rural infrastructure, water scarcity, etc. to name a few. Therefore, it is natural that we collaborate in these areas like renewable energy, infrastructure, healthcare, IT, agriculture and allied technologies, digitization of government services, etc. where both our countries are focusing on in a big way. 

 

I commend FICCI and the Egyptain Commercial Services (ECS) for organizing this business event. I am optimistic that this Council would go a long way to promote industry level cooperation between the two countries. I am sure that the 5th India Egypt Business Council meeting will be fruitful, and will further deepen our business linkages. 

Thank you. 

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