President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said he looks forward to further cooperation with the World Bank (WB) after it supported the country's development efforts. El-Sisi's remarks came during a meeting with a WB delegation in Cairo on Saturday, which was attended by Minister of International Cooperation Rania El-Mashat. This is the first visit by a WB delegation since 2014. According to Presidential Spokesman Bassam Rady, the president stressed during his meeting with the WB delegation the importance Egypt gives to developing its strategic relations with the WB Group as one of Egypt's crucial development partners, especially after the successful experience over the past years with the bank during which remarkable economic indicators were achieved. “Egypt is seeking to upgrade its strategic relations with the WB Group,” El-Sisi said. The president also talked about the development in negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). He stressed the importance of Nile water to Egypt and its people, as well as the fundamental differences between the right to development and the right to life and existence. WB officials underlined the vital role of Egypt in Africa and the Middle East, praising its success in overcoming different challenges in the past years. According to Radi, the delegation said Egypt overcame its challenges due to its solid political will and remarkable popular solidarity. The delegation said they have monitored profound positive changes in Egypt since their last visit in 2014. “Egypt's performance,” the delegation said, “resulted in yielding positive results in terms of raising growth rates, reducing the budget deficit, unemployment and inflation, as well as implementing major national projects that contributed to advancing development efforts, and made Egypt a successful model in achieving security and stability, in addition to a package of unprecedented measures in social protection.” According to the statement, they noted that their current visit to Cairo is aimed at getting acquainted with the Egyptian government's economic reform efforts and conducting field visits to development projects in which the bank is contributing. They added that the visit also aims at discussing prospects for future cooperation between Egypt and the WB, as well as identifying Egypt's vision towards means to achieve growth in Africa. They affirmed the WB's desire to continue implementing cooperation programmes with Egypt, in a way that contributes to supporting its development efforts, as well as cooperation to support development projects in the African continent.
