Ashraf AboArafe
Today, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi received CEOs of a number of Italian mining companies, including Breton, BSM and Minerali Industriali. The meeting was also attended by Prime Minister, Dr. Moustafa Madbouly, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Eng. Tarek El Molla, as well as the Italian Ambassador in Egypt.
Spokesman for the Presidency, Counselor Ahmad Fahmy, said the meeting explored prospects of cooperation with the Italian companies to leverage Egypt’s mineral wealth, in light of the huge success of the industrial cooperation between Egypt and Italy. Such cooperation included the Complex of Quartz Production Plants in Ein Sokhna, which the President inaugurated last May.
The Italian companies‘ directors and CEOs confirmed that they looked forward to cultivating closer cooperation with Egypt. They highlighted the President’s close follow-up on efforts to push private investments out of the state’s keenness on realizing significant leap in this field. They underscored their commitment to further strengthening the fruitful collaboration with Egypt in mining activities, given Egypt’s potential of mineral ores and the conducive investment climate in the mining sector in Egypt.
President El-Sisi emphasized Egypt’s appreciation of its robust and historical relations with Italy and commitment to further advancing ties in various areas of bilateral cooperation. He reiterated Egypt’s interest to attract major Italian companies to the mining and transformative industry sector with the aim of increasing the industrial value addition, the localization of the industry, the transfer of knowledge and technology and building Egyptian capacity in this most advanced industries. This shall take place in a manner that opens up broader prospects for the national economy to provide more job opportunities and increase production and exports to world countries.
