Since President Mubarak has assumed office, he has adopted the diplo-macy of development through pushing the development process in the Afri-can continent and providing Egyptian assistances according to its potentials for the African countries in order to achieve progress and development through the inauguration of the Egyptian Fund for Technical Cooperation with Africa in 1981.

The President said: "…The Egyptian Fund for Technical Cooperation with Africa is always playing its role concerning the member states in the field of human resources development and assisting the Free Trade Zone of COMESA…". Actually, The Fund continues its work in cooperation with the other regional gatherings. President Mubarak is keen to follow up and evalu-ate the development movement in the African continent. This showed in his speech, "…The 80s witnessed an improper circumstances which led to poor growth rates in most African countries. These rates show a drop in the stan-dard of living, meantime the most advanced industrialized countries have achieved a high growth. So, many people called the 80s, the decade of lost growth…". President Mubarak stressed the importance of supporting devel-opment efforts saying: "…Egypt supports all ways that aim to develop hu-man resources in the African nations. So, this process has top priority…". He added: "…The African continent development is, at the first place, the responsibility of peoples and governments. This concept was highlighted in Cairo Action Programme Document issued by African Summit, 1995. It also stressed that democracy, good governonance, peace, security, stability and justice are the fundamental factors for African socio-economic devel-opment...".


The Egyptian Fund for Technical Cooperation with Africa

Out of Egypt's keenness on supporting and deepening relations with the African countries through cooperation in order to achieve the continent's de-velopment and in implementation of the South/South cooperation policy for being the only approach for Africa to achieve self-independence, develop-ment and progress, Egypt established the Egyptian Fund for Technical Coop-eration with Africa by virtue of the Republican Decree no 660 on December 16, 1980 as an independent body affiliated to the Foreign Ministry. Cairo is the venue of the Fund and its board chairman is the Egyptian Foreign Minis-ter. The Fund opened its activity in 1981 and in January 1988, the Republican Decree no 49 to introduce some amendments on its structure was promul-gated.

The Fund resources consist of financial allocations earmarked annualy by the Arab Republic of Egypt in the general budget. The total aid and grants provided by Egypt to the African countries since the establishment of the fund till now, are about one and half billion Egyptian pound.

Out of Egypt's keenness to score success for the fund's role, the Egyptian cabinet lately agreed upon increasing the Fund's budget from $ 10 million to $12 million in 2005.

Objectives of the Fund

The Egyptian Fund for Technical Cooperation with Africa was established in order to score a main goal which is the contribution to providing the re-quired support to achieve socio-economic and cultural development for Afri-can countries with Egyptian experiences through several ways:-

1- Providing technical cooperation for the African countries by sending Egyptian experts and consultants of various specializations and according to the need of every country.
2- Providing scholarships and training courses for the continents' youths to provide new qualified cadres in various sectors that the development process needs whether they are human resources or for enhancing the productive, administrative and institutional capabilities. Egypt has specialized institutes and training and academic centeres in different fields with high qualified lev-els.
3- Contributing to the projects in the African countries in economic, social and cultural fields through cooperation with different agencies and domestic, regional and international organizations.
4- Providing aid and reliefs for African countries which suffered from natural disasters or civil wars.

Trilateral Cooperation

In the framework of the principle of South/South and North/South coop-eration besides the Fund's technical aid needed for African countries through bilateral agreements, reached till now more than 61 with African countries governments where the Fund Secretariat General updated its data frequently according to the requirement of the technical cooperation. Egypt has applied the concept of trilateral cooperation since 1984 in order to increase the Fund's resources, activity and contributions in Africa.

The trilateral cooperation or the system of participation in costs are be-tween Egypt through the Egyptian Fund for technical cooperation with Africa and bodies and international organizations involved in international devel-opment fields or technical cooperation on one hand and African countries benefited from the fund contributions on the other hand. It has succeeded through the trilateral cooperation approach to play a positive and effective role because it serves as a bridge enjoying an international trust where the fund of countries, international organizations donors for developmental pro-jects in African countries across on according to the agreements and projects studies held by the Fund.

According to this approach, the Fund since its inception signed 31 coopera-tion protocols with bodies, organizations, countries and technical cooperation agencies including:

1- Signing a cooperation protocol with UN Industrial Development Or-ganization (UNIDO) in 1984 under which it requested the Egyptian experi-ence in industrial and engineering fields in African continents.

2- Signing an agreement between the Egyptian Fund and International Agency for Technical and Cultural Cooperation (Francophonie International Organization) in 1984 to provide aid for the French language-spoken African countries. The agency contributes with a part of grants and projects offered by the Fund.

3- Signing a cooperation agreement with the Japanese International Coop-eration Agency (JICA) in 1998 under which the Fund affords a part of the budget of the activities implemented by JICA in Egypt for the sake of African countries with a rate of 5% and later on went up to 15% of total budget of 2003.

4- A cooperation agreement with the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) through which the fund will contribute with 25% of the total budget allocated for the courses held by the agency.

5- A cooperation agreement with the Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC).

6- An agreement with the Arab Fund for Technical Assistance by virtue of which it will afford 80% of the total costs of the courses.

7- An agreement with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) by virtue of which it will afford a limited percentage of the incentives allocated to send technicians to United Republic of Tanzania upon the South-South co-operation agreement for food security signed between the FAO and the Min-istry of Agriculture.

8- An agreement with the Arab Bank by virtue of which the fund contrib-utes with 10% of the total budget for courses held in Cairo for African partici-pants.

The fund's statistics indicate that since its establishment and till 2004, it could, at a fairly high rate succeed to offer support, technical assistance and Egyptian experience to the African states as follows:

1- Central Africa region comes at top; where 1608 experts, were dispatched there, and this is due to the existence of three Nile Basin states in that region: Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda.
2- South Africa received 1319 experts.
3- East Africa region received 1158 experts.
4- West Africa ranks last at a share of 915 experts.

 

Moreover, President Mubarak introduces his vision to deal with the New World Order where he sees that economic blocs are the best option: "…Your institutions are the most convenient and qualified to serve our continent's issues and improve ways of interaction among our peoples. In our age, where the world witnesses the emergence and establishment of major eco-nomic blocs, Africa should not lag behind that convoy…" … "…This pro-vides the African Economic Committee the significance of implementing the authorization granted thereto and helps face up to the socio-economic problems in Africa. The Committee was Africa's strong arm in the socio-economic field; thus its role must be reviewed so as to become an effective tool in facing up to the challenges that Africa faces.".

And on encouraging trade exchange among the Continent's states, Presi-dent Mubarak says: "…I call on you to study the scientific methods that may support Abuja agreement and cement it in our contemporary reality, in ac-cordance with the great hopes of our peoples to realize a socio-economic progress in the present and the future. There are vistas of cooperation among the Continent's states in investment, facilitating movement of la-bourers and capital all over Africa. No narrow considerations should pre-clude expanding the horizons of that cooperation, rather we should highly encourage commercial exchange. "Magnifying the benefits of globalization and curbing the concomitant dangers entail the African states' coordination and integration among themselves through setting joint programmes for cooperation and supporting regional gatherings." "…However, effectuating regional integration entails more joint efforts by the African states to estab-lish the regional projects in all productive sectors…" His Excellency also adds saying "…More important than all that; the aspired regional integra-tion demands the presence of supervisory systems capable of following the market under full transparency and sound bases for good administration as one of the major pivots that we should use.".

Egypt and The Regional Economic Groupings

Out of Egypt's realization of the significance of regional groupings and economic blocs in propelling the wheel of integration and development in the African states, and the significance of Egyptian participation in them, Egypt has already joined many of the African economic groupings and played a key role in their activities on the African or international arenas. Within the con-text of Egypt's interest in the necessity of activating and enhancing Afro-Egyptian relations, in 1997, a ministerial committee was formed with the Prime Minister as the chairman and nine ministers representing the compe-tent executive authorities. Among those economic groupings Egypt joined are:

First: the African Economic Group Organization (AEGO).

- In June 1990, Egypt signed the founding treaty of the AEGO during the 27th summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Abuja.

- Egypt exerted strenuous efforts and effectively rendered the establish-ment of the AEGO a success and in May 13, 1994, it came to force when Egypt presided the 29th session of the (OAU).

- During the first summit of the AEGO, in June 1997, Egypt called for re-considering the structure of the economic group thus permitting Egypt's ac-cession to regional economic grouping in Africa.

- In April 1998, Cairo hosted the expert committee affiliated to the AEGO and studied the establishment of a consultative body from the African par-liamentarians as a preparation for establishing the Pan-African parliament.

- And in the same month, the second socio-economic session of the AEGO presided by Egypt and in which the delegations of 36 states participated, was held. In that session, Egypt declared its readiness to offer all its experiences to meet needs of economic development all over the African states, calling for more cooperation and integration among the continent's states to face up to the challenges imposed by the New World Order.

- In September 2000, the African ministers of trade held their third meeting in Cairo in which an agreement was concluded to develop mechanisms of co-operation among the African states.
Second: COMESA

- Egypt joined the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (CO-MESA) as an observer member on December 8, 1994, in the first Summit of the Heads of State and Governments.

 
- In May 1998, and during the third summit in Kinshasa, the COMESA ministerial council agreed on Egypt's joining the membership.

- And after Egypt's accession the COMESA in 1998, President Mubarak gave due attention to that grouping as he introduced a long-term vision for some objectives "…It is incumbent upon us to take into consideration that trade liberalization per se is not our final end for regional cooperation, rather it is an inevitable basis to boost our potentials.

 

This is to attain a big-ger share of the world market and establish an essential socio-economic de-velopment in our region and the African Continent…" confirming that: "…The African rise will not be realized unless the African private sector in-teracts in a smart and effective partnership with the African governments. And we strongly believe that Africa's real engagement in the world econ-omy entails that the private sector be a development locomotive in the con-tinent…" Stressing Egypt's role in economic development, his Excellency added ''…Egypt proposes hosting the COMESA Regional Development Agency that was endorsed by the fourth summit in 1999. This is for improv-ing investment atmosphere of the COMESA member states and make use of the advantages that Egypt enjoys in the big markets of the European Un-ion and the Arab states…".

After his Excellency was elected as president of the 6th session of the CO-MESA in May 2001, President Mubarak proposed a clear-cut agenda based on:

First: Increasing the number of member states in the Free Trade Zone so that it may include all the COMESA member states.

Second: Well-studied preparation to start phase II of integration by estab-lishing COMESA Customs Union by the advent of 2004.

Third: Directing what has been realized of achievements so for towards at-tracting more foreign investments to the states of the region.

President Mubarak said the COMESA achievements and successes reflect "…The depth of our adherence to our joint objectives and the firmness of our will to move together towards fulfilling economic integration. In addi-tion, we have to accelerate establishing the Customs Union and concluding an agreement upon the foreign unified customs tariff out of our abidance by the programmes of the organization, our credibility for working together on magnifying the volume of inter-trade, establishing economic integra-tion, and fulfilling our pledges to establish an economic community on solid grounds that may help realize the ambitions and hopes of all African states…"

Egypt's role under the COMESA was intensified as follows:

 

b- In December 2004, Cairo held the fifth meeting of the coordination committee changed with unifying statistic systems of trade and customs in the region of the COMESA.

c- Egypt applied customs cuts between it and the COMESA member states at 100%.

d- In December 2004, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Sta-tistics (CAPMAS) signed an agreement for improving the standard of services with the COMESA member states in a way that guarantees providing a data base that includes monthly foreign trade statistics with the aim of building bridges of cooperation between the states, realizing integration, and trade ex-change.

f- Egypt made a proposal to establish a barter fund among the COMESA states to enhance inter-trade and the proposal was welcomed by the mem-bers.

g- In June 2006, Egypt became the venue of the Regional Investment Agency (RIA) affiliated to COMESA; Egypt and the COMESA secretariat signed the headquarter agreement.

h- Egypt supports the COMESA businesses council, and the Egyptian pri-vate sector presides it.

i- Egypt contributes to training the COMESA secretariat cadres to enable them of performing the missions efficiently. Moreover, an Egyptian ambassa-dress occupies the position of the COMESA general secretariat.

j- Egypt effectively participates in the meetings of establishing the CO-MESA Customs Union due to be established by 2008.

Currently, Egypt participates in all the meetings of the COMESA entities be they held in Egypt or in any of the member states. Those meetings are con-cerned with discussing the activities of the organization in cooperation fields of energy, trade, customs and transportation. It is Worthmentionening the volume of trade exchange between Egypt and the COMESA states in January-July 2004, reached $ 182 million where Egypt's exports hit $ 83 million and its imports reached $ 99 million.

Third: the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)

- Egypt participates in the IGAD, established in 1995, as an observer since 2000.

- Egypt is also a member of Sudan and Somaila two committees emanating from the IGAD due to Egypt's attention paid to those two Afro-Arab states, and its efforts to solve their problems in the Arab League, the African Union, and the UN.

Fourth: Sahel and Sahara Grouping.

Egypt joined this grouping early 2001. It is a relatively newly born one.

Fifth: Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS)

Egypt joined the ECOWAS as an observer late December 2004, and the membership was declared during the African Union Summit in Abuja, Febru-ary 2005. This is deemed a reflection of Egypt's attention paid to West Africa region. The ECOWAS is an economic organization that includes West Africa states, be they Anglophonic or Francophonie, that aim at encouraging coop-eration and development in all economic activities. At the beginning of the Egyptian interaction with the West African states, Egypt signed an agreement on banning dual taxation with Senegal on the margins of the African Union Summit in Abuja, January 30, 2005.

 

In addition to President Mubarak's inter-est in the regional economic groupings in Africa as those of the COMESA and the ECOWAS, he did not disregard the bilateral relations for being a funda-mental pivot in the talks he held with his of African counterparts. For exam-ple, on February 1, 2007, President Mubarak held talks with President Fran-cois Bozize of Central Africa and focused on means of increasing trade ex-change between the two countries and the possibility of providing Central Af-rica with Egypt's experience in establishing dams, power generation and in fields of agriculture, health, infrastructure, education and tourism. Moreover, President Mubarak did not disregard the international dimension in the eco-nomic cooperation with Africa as in the Afro-Chinese relations. This attention was translated in President Mubarak's attendance in China-Africa Summit held in Beijing, 2006.

The Issue of Indebtedness

African indebtedness gained President Mubarak's undivided attention as pointed to in his speech "…We have to move together to unify the confronta-tion of Africa's crushing economic problems that hinder and threaten our march on the way of development and progress. In this concern, I specify the African indebtedness issue that represents a major threat to all efforts we exert on the way of development and economic reform...".

 

He sees that among the reasons behind the crisis of the continent is "…Those brotherly countries had to pay the installments and interests of the debts from the revenues of their exports without leaving a penny in their treasuries to im-port their essential requirements or needs of agricultural or industrial pro-duction.

 

The crisis of our continent aggravated after the drop of prices of raw materials, and thus the continent's limited potential to partially pay its debts was diminished…" and that "…It is high time that the world public opinion pays attention to the tragedy that Africa lives, and to the consider-able significance to open dialogue and promote constructive cooperation between the North and the South.

 

 May be it is significant also that the debtor and creditor states should initiate cooperation to exert more efforts for reaching the best formula that guarantees improving the economic con-ditions in the African states and alleviate the financial crises they con-front…". Actually, the world began to respond to President Mubarak's call as "…Egypt joined both the developed and developing countries, on equal footing, in asserting the necessity of reviewing mechanisms of reducing the current debts due to the infeeciency of those mechanisms. In this concern, Egypt stresses the inevitability of reformulating the poor countries' initia-tive of the higher debts carried out by Briton and Woods organizations in a way that permits reducing the debts more profoundly, comprehensively and accelerately. The resources available to this initiative may be increased through implementing proposals of the IMF…".

President Mubarak did not let an occasion pass without reminding the world of its responsibilities towards the Black Continent. This is due to his piercing vision that the economic crisis is the reason behind the spread of ter-rorism: "…And this requires the rich countries to stimulate development; a real development in the African countries and to left burden of indebted-ness that the continent sustains or use this indebtedness for setting up in-frastructure in these states…".

In the framework of the Egyptian role towards addressing the problem of African indebtedness, it made positive proposals to the 28th summit, in 1992, and the 30th summit in 1994 among of which are:

1- Writing off foreign debts for the rich countries especially the military debts.
2- Rescheduling the rest of debts on long-terms with soft terms.
3- Reducing rate of interest due to the burdens of debt service that is deemed one of the reasons leading to mounting the volume of debts, thus in-ability to pay the installments in due time.
4- The IMF should contribute with a bigger share in compensating the bal-ances of payments of the African countries which mostly affected by the sur-rounding crises in addition to the necessity that the World Bank should un-dertake a key and effective role in financing economic development in the Af-rican countries.
5- The significance of activating production and exportation, which in turn leads to addressing balances of payments in preparation to dispense with for-eign lending.
6- Launching a call to hold an international conference with the major in-dustrialized nations, creditor states and world and African finance corpora-tions attending, provided that the conference shall find proper solutions to alleviate burdens of African indebtedness.

About the crisis of indebtedness, President Mubarak in his speech to the 26th African Summit in Addis Ababa, 1990, referred to the fact that in the 1980s, indebtedness reached five folds its cost in the 1970s, and the crisis re-sulted in separating the GDP of many countries from the needs of domestic consumption and investment. He also referred to these countries being obliged to import necessary food and consumerable goods for their citizens. So most of them had to halt anti-poverty programmes and diminishing the amount of investment. In order to achieve Egypt's vision towards solving the problem of indebtedness, it intensified its efforts in cooperation with the Afri-can states to set a strategy to alleviate those problems through:

- Egypt hosted the mini-African Summit, March 1987, whose salient item on its agenda was the economic issue.

- Egypt's participation in the 3th extraordinary African Summit held in Ad-dis Ababa, November 30-December 1, 1987. The summit specifically discussed the economic issue in Africa and Egypt effectively contributed to draft the document that the Summit concluded as regards the African unified situation towards the crisis of African foreign debts.

- Egypt hosted the Latin-African Dialogue Seminar on August 1-2, 1989; organized by the Egyptian and Mexico Diplomatic Institutes with the aim of coordination between the two continents on the issue of debts, within the con-text of preparing for an international conference that includes debtor and creditor countries and international corporations.

- Cairo hosted the International Seminar on African Debts on August 28-30, 1989 to set the most convenient solutions for the problem of the foreign debts and call for holding an international conference on the African indebtedness.

New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)

Within the framework of Egypt's interest in launching an African initiative that includes the continent's vision and proposals in addressing its problems and achieving the goals of the socio-economic development for their people; Egypt played a key role to formulate the NEPAD initiative as follows:

- At the beginning, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria and South Africa adopted the initiative known as the "African Millennium Programme".

- In June 2001, Egypt has succeeded during the meeting of "the Steering Committee" in Cairo to reach an agreement among these four countries and Senegal that had already lodged an initiative to merge the two initiatives in one document that takes into consideration what has mentioned in the two initiatives.

- In July 2001, President Mubarak sent a message to the Italian Prime Min-ister, in his capacity as the chairman of the G-8 at that time and through him to the rest of the member of the group to call them on supporting and enhanc-ing the initiative.

- Egypt participated on the ministerial level in the meetings of the Execu-tive Committee.

- President Mubarak led the Egyptian delegation in the meeting called for by French President Jacque Chirac in Paris in February 2002 where 13 African leaders attended the event with object to promote the initiative and prepare for submitting it to the G-8 Summit in Canada on June 20, 2002.

- On June 1, 2003, President Mubarak attended the meetings of Evian Summit of the G-8, with attendance of the five countries which launched the initiative and the leaders of the developing countries. Mubarak stressed in his statement the NEPAD priorities to achieve comprehensive development in the continent, emphasizing the importance of increasing the African agricul-tural exports to world markets, reducing prices of medicines, making them available to the needy countries and modernizing the management and usage of water resources.

- On April 18-19, 2005, Egypt hosted the 13th Summit of the Executive Committee of NEPAD and the 3rd Summit of the Peer Review Mechanism.

- On November 23, 2004, Mubarak announced during the NEPAD Summit in Algeria that Egypt provides a $ one million financial contribution to the ini-tiative.

- Egypt is a member of "the Steering Committee" of NEPAD which includes the five founding countries Egypt is in charge with the agriculture file and exportation of products to world markets because of its experience in the field of foreign trade.

- Egypt is also a member in the Peer Review Mechanism, which is one of the distinguished structures of NEPAD. It follows up and evaluates to what extent the countries are committed to their duties. It makes an evaluation of two countries every three months to ensure that good governance prevails the African countries and positive settlement of the African disputes are pro-vided. Egypt has acceded to the mechanism in April, 2004.

- Egypt participates in the African mining initiative which is considered a council for the African mining ministers under the umbrella of NEPAD.

- Egypt presented a package of proposed projects especially in the field of transportation including the regional projects for development and coopera-tion among the African countries.

- Egypt prepared a project to build a website for the initiative to promote cooperation among the African countries and the development partners and it was actually implemented.

- Egypt in its capacity as a coordinator of the agricultural file within the framework of the initiative, gained the membership of the Comrehensive Programme of Agricultural Development in Africa which is concerned with mobilizing the necessary resources to implement the programme. The Egyp-tian Ministry of Agriculture also prepared feasibility studies for four projects to include them among the regional agricultural projects.

- Egypt participated in all NEPAD Summits, held on the sidelines of the African Union Summit and the last one was in Addis Ababa on January 27, 2007.

Egypt for being one of the five founding of the initiative, President Muba-rak pays due attention to achieve its objectives. He says: "Achievement of the objectives of the initiative requires an agreement on priorities and setting up necessary implementation and follow-up mechanisms within the framework of the joint responsibility that the African side assured to be ready to commit to. On top of which is the field of trade associated with working to improve the opportunities of the African products access to the foreign markets and to diversify exports by taking certain procedures and mechanisms to support the African countries technically and financially through certain programmes and projects on both the bilateral and regional levels. The developed countries must respect their commitments and obli-gations they had pledged at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization".

Concerning Mubarak's vision on the role that must be played by the major countries to assist NEPAD initiative to achieve its goals of development, Mubarak said: "Favorable conditions for development must be created in the African Continent through our efforts in the framework of the initiative. Peace and stability must prevail Africa through our joint efforts and that of the G-8. Raising the individual's standard of living in Africa, exploiting all its potentials within an integrated plan of human development should take place".

Due to Mubarak's keenness to render NEPAD success in achieving its objec-tives; Mubarak said: "…I instructed all Egyptian ministries and institutions working in the different development sectors to put the potentials of the training and rehabilitation professional, scientific, technological research institutes at the service of the African countries". Mubarak also stressed: "We in Africa are keen on establishing a new partnership with the interna-tional development partners based on values, principles and mutual inter-ests and responsibility to pave the way for a new international economic system that could be more just and respond to the legitimate African de-mands…".

Egyptian Support for Joint Projects

Egypt is always keen on strengthening her relationship and cooperation with African states in political, economic, agricultural and industrial fields to develop and prompt the African continent. Hence, President Mubarak was calling for the necessity to open new vistas of cooperation especially that Af-rica has many advantages top of which are the unlimited resources. Out of Egypt's desire to boost the mechanism of trade exchange with the African states, it set up and supported many projects, salient of which are the follow-ing:

1- In December 2004 during the African chambers of commerce meeting held in Alexandria, Dr. Youssef Boutros Ghali, the Egyptian Finance Minister, announced the setting up of an integrated programme with western African countries, for which $10 million soft loans were allocated to help producers in Mali, Senegal and Burkina Fasso, manufacture goods appropriate to the Egyp-tian market and to form a strong African bloc.

2- The Egyptian-Ethiopian trade ties witnessed a noticeable development in 2004 in many cooperation fields mainly:

A- An agreement was signed by the Ethiopian Takim limited company working in meat exportation, and the Egyptian manufacture and provide slaughterhouses Dana investment company for equipments and beef process-ing.

This agreement stipulated that the Egyptian investment companies would establish and rehabilitate many Ethiopian slaughterhouses as well as meat and livestock exportation for the Egyptian market.

The initial investment of the projects between the two countries hit $ 50 million.

B- On 4/10/2004, a contract for establishing the first joint Egyptian-Ethiopian company for manufacture of irrigation pipes and insulation materi-als with a joint capital of $10 million was signed. The share of the "Egyptian Golden Trade Company" which is a private company, is 30%, and the rest paid by the Ethiopian irrigation works public company. The contract term is 10 years, during which the Egyptian side would supervise both the technical and marketing sectors. The contract provided that the joint company should set up four production lines, one of them for manufacturing insulation mate-rials from polyethylene derivatives and the others for irrigation pipes produc-tion with diameter of 20-400 m.m, in addition to two highly-equipped labora-tories for tests.

3- On 13/2/2005, an agricultural cooperation agreement was signed by the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, and the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture. Under that agreement the Egyptian experience in the agricultural researches centeres would contribute to setting up a modern and pilot farm for anatomy and animal genetic researches, as well as the optimal use of irrigation water and fertilizers.

4- An agreement between the Agriculture Ministers Cote of d'Ivoire and Egypt on means of developing cooperation in all fields, as well as developing fish production and joint investment, and increasing training chances for the technicians of Cote d'Ivoire.

5 - On 27/12/2004, a cooperation agreement was signed between the stock exchange in Cairo and Alexandria, and its counterpart in Khartoum to facili-tate and regulate cooperation between companies registered in both markets.

6 - In February 2005, work started in the Free Trade Zone between Egypt and Sudan on the Egyptian – Sudanese boundaries. It deals with commodities exchange and free marketing for various commodities and foods between northern and southern of the valley, through Egyptian – Sudanese company financed by businessmen from the two countries and is established on the way between " Abu Simbel" city in Egypt and "Halfa" city in Sudan.

7- In March 2005, the four-freedoms agreement between Egypt and Sudan came into force.
8- Concerning transportation, Egypt and Guinea agreed on establishing a maritime line between the two countries to boost and revive trade exchange. The two sides discussed the possibility of the Egyptian maritime line's contri-bution in developing the railway from "Dar As-Salam" Port to "Burundi", which has not an outlet in the African continent.

9- Concerning the electrical linkage, many projects are established as the following:

A- The Egyptian companies established an electrical cables factory in Su-dan and participated in the establishment of the Egyptian-Sudanese company for electrical industries with object to set up a factory for electrical transform-ers and another one to manufacture pylons that transmit the electrical power.

B- A contract for establishing networks for electricity distribution in Sudan was signed.

C- The Egyptian companies are currently establishing 14 transmission sta-tions in Sudan with 11/33 k.v., two of them were already finished.

D- On 24/2/2005, the establishment of the electrical power gathering of the 10 Eastern African states of the Nile Basin was declared in Addis Ababa, with object optimal to achieve benefit from power resources in the member states, through carrying out a regional investment project, as well as increasing the power supplies in these states. Also, decreasing the cost of electricity produc-tion through using electrical linkage system and exchanging power among the gathering states.

By so doing it will help to create an appropriate investment atmosphere within the framework of the New Partnership for the Africa's Development (NEPAD).

E- In April 2007, the Egyptian delegation for fighting the Gambian mosqui-toes participated in works of the joint Egyptian-Sudanese mission form the High Dam lake to Donquola city in Sudan. The Egyptian side grouped 50 doc-tors, engineerings and workers.

F- On April 13th 2007, Dr. Ahmed Nazif, the Egyptian Prime Minister co-chaired the Higher Egyptian–Sudanese Committee to enhance cooperation between the two countries and achieve economic integration especially in ag-riculture, irrigation and industry fields.
Moreover, the Higher Committee discussed the Completion of Gongli Ca-nal project, the cultivation of 300 thousand feddans in Sudan, besides carrying out projects in the fields of industry, infrastructure, as well as cooperation in the field of petroleum, gas, higher education and drafting of new agreements.