CAIRO, 2 June 2005 — The European Union allocated yesterday a sum of around $1 billion to facilitate and finance technical aid for Egypt, head of the Europe-Egypt Business Organizations Union Mohammad Naser said yesterday.
The Europe-Egypt Business Organizations Union includes over 7,000 members, which are the founding establishments operating in Egypt for over half a century. The body on boosting the economic relationship between Egypt and the European Union that never waned since the signing of the Egypt-EU Association Agreement in 2001 after a decade of negotiations.
This year, however, European interest in doing business in Egypt is increasing as the Egypt government is keen on reforming the economy to increase the foreign investment flows needed to prompt growth.
The EU managed to overtake the US as the largest non-Arab investor in Egypt. This year, the EU investment in the country topped 1.1 billion euros reassuring the two sides that their economic tie is on the right track. Egypt is also the second largest loaner of development and cooperation funding as it has received some 1.5 billion euros last year.
The EU trade currently accounts for 40 percent of Egyptian exports and 34 percent of its imports. Egypt’s main exports to the EU in 2003 were energy (38 percent), textiles and clothing (15 percent) and agricultural products (9 percent).
