Egypt’s president urges African partners to double trade

Africa 2016 conference in Sharm El Sheikh hopes to build on 26-nation free-trade pact for common market.

Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi delivers a speech at the opening of the Africa 2016 forum in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh on February 20, 2016. Mohamed El Shahed / AFP

CAIRO // Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi opened an Africa-focused investment conference on Saturday as part of Cairo’s efforts to strengthen ties with sub-Saharan African countries amid tensions over sharing the Nile.

More than 1,200 delegates including some heads of state were hoping to sign business agreements during the two-day conference, which is being held in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.

Organisers hope the “Africa 2016” conference can build on a 26-nation free trade pact signed last year to create a common market on half the continent.

In a televised speech, Mr El Sisi said Egypt hopes to double its trade with other African nations in the next five years to US$10 billion (36.7bn).

Egypt’s private sector investment in Africa currently exceeds $8 billion, he said.

The World Bank expects average economic growth in sub-Saharan countries to reach 4.4 per cent in 2016 and 4.8 per cent the following year.

In 2014, Mr El Sisi established the Egyptian Agency of Partnership for Development to provide assistance and promote development in Sub-Saharan Africa. The agency has brought 2,500 people to Egypt over the agency’s first 18 months for medical, agricultural and diplomatic training, and has sent medical convoys to the region.

Egypt has voiced fears that Ethiopia’s $4.2 billion hydroelectric project, announced in 2011, will diminish its share of the Nile, which provides electricity and almost all of the desert nation’s water.

Both Egypt and Sudan have expressed concerns that the dam will violate their rights – as outlined in a colonial-era agreement – to the majority of the river. Ethiopia is nevertheless pressing ahead with construction of the massive new dam, which it hopes will help alleviate its own power shortages.

“The issue of the water and Ethiopia, of course it’s a tense issue,” said ambassador Hazem Fahmy, who heads the Egyptian development agency.

“The more you have integration of interests and a common vision toward the future, the less the size of these problems.”

* Associated Press, with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse