CAIRO, 24 September 2003 — The Chinese government prepared here yesterday to sponsor its biggest hi-tech trade exhibition abroad, hoping to tap the Egyptian market but also the Arab, African and European markets, officials said.
Starting Thursday in Cairo, some 260 businessmen from the Chunlan Corp., Huawei Technologies, ZTE and other firms were to showcase telecommunications and medical equipment as well as machinery and biopharmaceutical products.
“This is the biggest hi-tech expo ever sponsored by the Chinese government in a foreign country, and the first of its kind in the history of China-Egypt relations,” the Chinese embassy’s charge d’affairs, Luo Xiaoguang, told a press conference.
The purpose of the four-day exhibition was to shed a negative image that Chinese products were of low quality and lacking in spare parts, the embassy’s press spokesman Chen Hongbing told AFP.
“We want Egyptians to know that China can produce high-end products: Good quality at competitive prices with the best technology,” Chen said on the sidelines of the press conference.
“We think Egypt itself is already a big market. Of course we can expand,” Chen said, adding that China could also benefit from Egypt’s trade agreements with neighboring African countries and the European Union. Egypt was also a good base to penetrate other Arab markets, officials said.
The exhibition is the latest event in a year-long drive to forge closer ties between Egypt and China, Chen said.
Last year several Chinese delegations visited Egypt to size up and purchase Egyptian products while another delegation came to study new Egyptian investment laws and laws governing Egyptian free trade zones, he added. Though overwhelmingly in China’s favor, trade volume has been rising strongly for the last several years, according to embassy figures.
In 2002, two-way trade stood at $945 million, up from $606 million in 1998, the embassy said. From January to July 2003, trade stood at $582 million, up by eight percent against the same last year.
Meanwhile, 85 joint ventures have now been set up by Chinese and Egyptian firms, the embassy said without saying how many were here in previous years. Investment paid by Chinese companies is more than $53 million.