A SCOTTISH trade mission, with the participation of a number of companies and organisations, has visited Egypt last week to provide its expertise and seek business opportunities in many fields. Headed by Abdel-Hadi Fawzi, senior executive of Middle East and Africa department at the Scottish Development International (SDI), the trade delegation has discussed business cooperation with Egyptian government officials, private and public sector companies and organisations. "Egypt is one of the main trading partners in the Middle East and North Africa [MENA] region, and that reflects our commitment to introduce companies and organisations to the Egyptian market," Fawzi declared. According to Fawzi, meetings, which were scheduled to take place on 5 February but started on 12 March instead due to political events, have tackled areas of direct interest to the current Egyptian government such as vocational training, developing small and medium enterprises, manufacturing industries skills development, human resources development, power generations maintenance and community colleges creation. A project document for nursing education, Fawzi added, is already completed. Education as a concept was one of the main areas covered by the discussions. "For the past three years, education has been on top of the list of priorities," said Dominic Asquith, British ambassador to Egypt. "We have been in talks with the Egyptian government about various projects related to education such as training English language teachers," he noted. "Having a second trade mission to Egypt during this extremely important time reflects the prosperity of partnership that exists between the two countries," said the ambassador. The first trade delegation was organised last month with the leadership of the Prime Minister of Britain. Alan Penrith, director of trade and investment in the British embassy in Egypt, says that during a meeting with almost 220 companies in London early this month, the companies showed interest in starting and expanding businesses in Egypt believing in the long-term potential of the Egyptian economy. "There will be three Egyptian trade missions to Britain in the coming few months, one of which will participate in a telecommunications conference in Cambridge next June," Penrith declared. "We see a lot of potential in cooperating in the sector of information and telecommunications which has doubled its growth in Egypt during the last few years," he added. The British ambassador stressed the fact that the British government did not change its travel advice to Egyptian Red Sea resorts since 25 January. "Britain was the only country that did not prevent its citizens from going to Egypt," he said.
