Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has travelled to New Delhi to bring closer ties with his Indian ally and has invited Prime Minister Modi to Cairo

India and Egypt boost bilateral ties with anti-terrorism objective

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The waters are rarely calm in the Middle East, which is why many countries choose to anticipate potential threats and guard their relations with those they consider allies. On this occasion, it is Egypt that is seeking to strengthen its ties with India. To this end, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has travelled to New Delhi to boost bilateral relations with the country led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
 
Al- Sisi was joined by five ministers, in addition to other senior Egyptian officials. A member of the Egyptian army will even take part in the parade on Republic Day, an important public holiday in India. This celebrates the coming into force of the Indian Constitution on 26 January 1950. In this way, India is sharing with its Egyptian ally an important day for the country, while celebrating that this year marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

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Al-Sisi's visit has focused on enhancing bilateral relations, particularly in terms of the fight against terrorism. In this regard, Prime Minister Modi said that both countries "agree that resolute action should be taken against cross-border terrorism". Cairo and New Delhi agree that terrorism is "the greatest threat to the security of humanity". These statements follow the line taken by the Asian country, which has expressed its concern about terrorism and its intention to expand efforts to combat it in recent international fora.
 
Narendra Modi added that "we will develop, under this strategic partnership between India and Egypt, a long-term framework for greater cooperation in the fields of politics, security, economics and science". Al-Sisi focused on his intention to deepen relations in the energy and tourism sectors as well. "We talked about cooperation in the sustainable hydrogen and renewable energy sectors," said the Egyptian president, who also highlighted projects in the field of connectivity with the aim of "increasing tourism".

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In fact, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi wants to follow this path and has invited the Indian prime minister to visit Cairo, while expressing his wish that "India will increase its investment in various sectors in Egypt, especially in the Suez Canal Economic Zone". Moreover, the president assures that many of those already investing in his country have set their sights on this region because of the significant opportunities it offers. In this context, he made special reference to Indian companies, saying that India and Egypt are "old cultural civilisations".
 
The meeting resulted in the exchange of five memoranda of understanding on cybersecurity and technology collaboration, as well as an agreement to increase bilateral trade to $12 billion in the coming years. All this represents important developments in the Indo-Egyptian bond that already showed good consonance when Al-Sisi visited India in 2016. Already at that time, the two decided to increase cooperation in security, as well as in international and economic assistance.
 
Data also reflect the growing closeness between the two countries. Trade between the two countries reached a record high in 2021-2022, exceeding seven billion dollars. In addition, more than fifty Indian companies invested just over three billion in various sectors of the Egyptian economy, including chemicals, energy, textiles, agribusiness and retail. Thus, this new boost to bilateral relations strengthens an alliance that is consolidating as one of the most important for Cairo and New Delhi.

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