Ms. Carmen Sylvain Completes a Successful Visit to Egypt

Ms. Carmen Sylvain the Assistant Deputy of the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade for Europe and Middle East, completed a successful visit to Egypt where she met with representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Arab League. Ms. Sylvain’s visit to Egypt comes as a follow-up to the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade The Hon. Lawrence Cannon’s visit to Cairo in August 2009, where he took part in comprehensive talks with the Egyptian Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazif, and Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on bilateral, regional and multilateral issues, committing to pursuing further discussions on enhanced cooperation in a number of areas between Egypt and Canada.

The Canada Egypt Business Council had the pleasure of hosting a special roundtable discussion on the occasion of Ms. Sylvain’s visit to Egypt where she met with members of the Canada Egypt Business Council and Ambassador Ferry de Kerckhove, Canada’s ambassador to Egypt and some of his professional team, Mr. John Broadbent, the Commercial Counselor, and Mr. Peter Bates, the Political Counselor, also Amb. Mahmoud El-Saeed, Former ambassador of Egypt to Canada, Mr. Omar El Sayeh, Chairman, Barclays Bank, Eng. Samir El-Alaily, Treasurer, CEBC, Mr. Moustafa Serry, General Manager Egypt Branch
and Chief Financial Officer, Petzed, Ms. Shahinaz Foda, Managing Director, BNP Paribas, Eng. Hesham Abdel Fattah, Managing Director, Orascom Training & Technology, Ms. Loula Zaklama, Board Member, CEBC, Dr. Mohamed Reda, Chairman, ITEC IT Export Community of Egypt, Ms. Hoda Masri, Board Member, CEBC and Ms. Lamise Negm, Vice President, Citibank were all among the esteemed attendees of the meeting.

The discussions covered a lot of topics such as Egypt’s efforts to open its economy during these tough economic times, and the exploration of opportunities to enhance two-way trade and investment relations especially that the business environment now witnesses significant Canadian commercial success stories between Canada and Egypt. Egypt is Canada’s fifth-largest market in North Africa and the Middle East, with exports exceeding $600 million. Canada looks forward to increased trade and investment with Egypt, especially in priority sectors such as communications and information technologies, health and education.

Ms. Sylvain highlighted the fact that few years ago a light came on the minds of Canadian policy makers where they started to see that Canadian direct investment abroad had a substantial benefit for Canada and that the Government of Canada has now given a clear mandate to the ambassadors and embassy staffs to encourage and assist Canadian firms who wish to invest overseas. Recent discussions have been made between Egypt and Canada to reach a free trade agreement (FTA), pointing out that this major issue was highly underscored during the recent visit of Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs to Cairo. The bilateral discussions would be further executed on the sidelines of World Trade Organization meeting, as meanwhile the Egyptian ministry of trade and industry is studying the agreement signed between Canada and Jordan and their impact on the Jordanian market for guidance.

The discussions focused also on the importance of Canada as a great, diversified economy and a broad market and the keenness of studying Canada’s FTA file for the welfare of both parties, and that this issue as mentioned has become a major concern on the agenda of the ministry of trade and industry at the time.

It was also mentioned that the annual trade missions to Canada organized by the Canada Egypt Business Council together with the support of the Canadian Embassy in Egypt, serve to clarify important issues and foster better understanding of Canada and Egypt economic and political circumstances. These missions help expand the outreach and direct focus towards deepening the Egyptian rapport with the Canadian counterparts, and above all creating a consistent Egyptian presence in Canada’s marketplace.

“After five consecutive missions to Canada, the turnout is excellent, so as the response of the Canadian contacts established through the years and that is considered the cornerstone of starting business and reinforcing the trade relations between the two countries”, concluded Mr. Raslan.