Egypt's Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade, Eng. Hatem Saleh, and the Croatian ambassador to Cairo, Darko Javorski, have held bilateral talks, during which they reviewed the future of the economic cooperation between the two countries and ways of enhancing the intra-trade and the joint investments between Egypt and Croatia in the coming period. The minister said the meeting tackled several factors; the important one was discussing the formation of Egyptian- Croatian Business Council, activating its role to serve the system of joint economic cooperation between the two countries; referring that the final formation of the council will be within two weeks. He added that there is a possibility for expanding the joint cooperation fields between the two countries; specifically in the fields of energy, furniture, food, petrochemical, machines industries and maritime transport; referring that reactivating these fields will be in the upcoming period. Saleh has referred that there is a great possibility for doubling the rates of commercial and investment exchange between the two countries; mentioning that total commercial exchange volume between the two countries reached € 104 million in 2011, and the total Croatian investments in Egypt amounted to $ 50 million. For his part, Darko Javorski said his country keens on expanding the economic cooperation horizons with Egypt in the coming period; adding that Croatia is about to join the EU in the few coming months, in a way that contributes to boosting the joint cooperation between the two countries in the framework of the partnership agreement between Egypt and the EU. The ambassador also referred that the necessity of enhancing and reactivating the commercial exchange between the two sides and maximizing the use of Egypt's distinguished location as a factor for promoting the Croatian exports to the Middle East and Africa continent's markets.
