Al Ahrar, P.6 (22-1-2008)

India is the third largest trade partner of Egypt

By: Mohamed El Ramah

Ambassador of India in Cairo Mr. A. Gopinathan said that  the volume of bilateral trade exchange between Egypt and India reached US$ 1.962 billion last year. India’s imports from Egypt reached US$ 1.534 billion, while India's exports to Egypt stood at US$ 427 million. He indicated that trade exchange between the two countries registered two years back about US$ 1.071 billion.

In a press conference held on India's National Day, the Indian Ambassador said that India emerged as Egypt’s third largest trading partner behind the US and Italy. He indicated that India is the 12^th largest foreign investor in Egypt with a total investment of approximately US$ 400 million in close to 40 projects. This is apart from the existing cooperation between the two countries in the field of telecommunication and IT.

He added that both Egypt and India face similar challenges in connection with development, especially with regard supplying subsidy to the real needy and making the poor feel the fruits of development and economic progress.

Given the rise in the growth rate of GDP last year, which registered 9.4%, India was in a position to allocate more resources for addressing poverty. By so doing, poverty rate in India reduced to 8% in spite of the huge population of India. It is worth mentioning that the annual increase of Indian population is equal to the entire population of Australia. This can reflect the big challenges and  problems facing the Indian government. However, the Indian government, in case of sustaining the GDP growth rate, will be able to increase the funds allocated to address the problems of healthcare, education and poverty.

In his response to a question raised by Al Ahrar newspaper, the Indian Ambassador said that the Indian economy has shifted from an agro-based economy to a services-based economy, as the contributions of services, industry and agriculture in the GDP are 55.1%, 26.4 and 18.5 respectively. The Indian Ambassador said that there are several fields of cooperation between Egypt and India, such as energy, space science, remote sensing and satellites. On the other hand, Mr. Gopinathan indicated that his country's cooperation with China sets a model for others to follow, as the two countries decided to put aside their thorny border disputes and promoted their cooperation in other fields. For instance, trade exchange between the two countries (India and China) reached US$ 60 billion after it did not exceed a few billions of dollars