Egypt's Minister of International Cooperation met Monday with an European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) delegation to discuss upcoming cooperation strategy after Egypt became among EBRD's 36 countries of operation in October 2015. Sahar Nasr discussed with EBRD's director for Egypt, Philip ter Woort the bank's current cooperation portfolio. Nasr and ter Woort agreed on a number of priorities for EBRD's upcoming cooperation strategy with Egypt, involving focusing on the country's private sector, energy sector, MSMEs financing, and governance. The new strategy must reflect Egypt's national priorities, Egyptian minister said. "We (Egypt and EBRD) plan to launch this strategy by early 2017." Nasr said. Egypt is expected to become EBRD's second biggest country of operation by 2017, the minister added. Ties between Egypt and EBRD goes back as far as 1991, Egypt was one of the founding members of the bank. The bank office in Cairo opened in 2014 to facilitate EBRD operations in Egypt.
