The European Investment Bank is studying the provision of €500 million ($553 million) financing to some Egyptian public banks to support the country's small and medium-sized businesses, an EIB official said Tuesday. Bruno Denis, Head of Division of Public Sector/South for Neighboring Countries Department at EIB, made his remarks following a meeting in Cairo with Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation Sahar Nasr, in presence of Head of the EIB Cairo Regional Office Christophe Lucet. The two parties have discussed the current financial cooperation portfolio and future cooperation areas between Egypt and EIB. Denis is visiting Cairo during the period from June 27-30 2016, Minister Nasr said the Egyptian Government was looking forward to EIB's constant support in order to proceed with the implementation of Egypt's economic development plans and priorities. She added that, in light of the diversity of financing resources available to the Egyptian Government, EIB should create competitive advantages through providing policies that ensure the existence of procedures to be applied to projects financed by the European bank. Denis commended the strategic cooperation relations between Egypt and the EIB started after the framework agreement for EIB's operations in Egypt was signed in 1977. He also expressed EIB's willingness to realise optimum benefit from the volume of cooperation portfolio worth €7.4 billion, under which EIB contributed to financing several sectors of priority to the Egyptian government, including energy, SMEs, infrastructure, transports, and environment. Both sides discussed several future cooperation projects to be signed before the end of this year, including the wind farm project in the Gulf of Suez, expected to be financed by the AFD, EIB, the European Union (EU), and GIZ.
