Kabil: More efforts need to be done to boost the annual Egyptian-Italian trade volume to €6bln.
Minister of Trade and Industry Tarek Kabil met with the Italian Undersecretary of State for Economic Development, Ivan Scalfarotto, on the sidelines of the WTO 11th Ministerial Meetings, currently taking place in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The meeting discussed enhancing bilateral cooperation, particularly in developing industrial complexes being established by the Egyptian government, such as: Robeiki Leather and Damietta Furniture cities.
The two ministers stressed the importance of convening the joint high committee on transportation to discuss proposals regarding ports linkage, as well as activating the Green Trade Initiative that would facilitate trade flows between the two countries.
“More efforts need to be done to boost the annual Egyptian-Italian trade volume to €6bln, as agreed upon during President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s visit to Italy in Nov 2014,” he noted.
Being one of Egypt’s top trade partners in Europe, trade with Italy grew 13.9% during the first six months of 2017, hitting €2.594bln, up from €2.276bln over the same period in 2016. Egyptian exports to the Italian market increased 35% to reach €995mln in the first half of the year.