Green light for Cyprus-Egypt business association

Egypt’s minister of trade and industry has given the green light for its end of a Cyprus-Egypt business association to go ahead even though an agreement to set it up was made in 2001.

Aly Basha, commercial counselor at the Egyptian embassy in Nicosia told the Cyprus Mail that he had initiated the move to ensure the association could finally get off the ground.

The Egyptian delegation to the association will be headed by Saeed Ahmed, the chairman of Nile Linen Group, one of the leading Egyptian manufacturers of home textiles. The head of the Cypriot side in the association is Andreas Christofides, managing director of KPMG Cyprus.

The association aims to further boost trade and investment between Egypt and Cyprus, which have been stepped up in recent years, particularly in the energy field.

Basha hailed the decision of the Egyptian ministry to green-light the effort and said he would start talks with both sides to hold the first joint meeting of the association before the end of the year.

“Taking this decision now on the part of Egypt reflects how strong, and how much potential our commercial relations have,” he said.