Lebanon and Egypt will cooperate in increasing their exports to African countries, said Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon Mohammed Badr al-Din Zayed. “Egypt is characterized by its strong diplomatic ties with the African continent, while the Lebanese are known to have successful businesses all over the world, including Africa,” he said during a news conference held at Banque Misr Liban. “This is why we want to increase cooperation between businessmen in both countries to increase exports to the African continent,” he added.
BML and the Egyptian embassy also announced a conference would be held Feb. 29 at Phoenicia Hotel in a bid to discuss possible business opportunities between businessmen in Lebanon and Egypt in the field of raw materials used for construction.
Zayed said that the conference aims at increasing Egyptian exports of raw construction materials to Lebanon. “Our exports of raw materials to Lebanon used to stand at $500 million before Egypt’s revolution but they have declined in the past couple of years,” he said. “We want to try to boost this figure again,” he added.
At the beginning of this month, the Egyptian government announced an increase in tariff rates on a wide range of imported items in an effort to counter tough economic conditions.
However, Zayed stressed that this increase won’t apply to imports from Arab countries.
Zayed also emphasized the part played by the Egyptian Lebanese Businessmen Friendship Association in creating commercial ties between people in the two countries.
“This association is playing a great role to increase Lebanese investments in Egypt which stand at $4 billion today,” he said. “It is also trying to increase Egyptian investments in Lebanon.”
Ahmed Abdel Hamid, head of Egypt’s Chamber of Building Materials Industries, reiterated Zayed’s comments, saying that Egypt is keen to revive and increase its exports to Lebanon. He said that Egyptian companies work according to certain quality standards to be able to compete in export markets. “Also, prices of Egyptian products are competitive nowadays due to the depreciation of the Egyptian pound against the U.S. dollar.”
Fadi Daouk, executive general manager at BML, said that his bank was ready to provide facilities to support the cooperation between Egypt and Lebanon in expanding business to Africa.
