CAIRO: Egypt's Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr began on Tuesday evening a major tour of Asia, beginning with a visit to China to be followed by stop in Japan and South Korea. The spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Amr Roshdy was quoted by the state-run MENA news agency as saying that the ministry “is seeking in the current stage to focus on Egypt's relations with the north and west,” pointing to the FM's visit as the first Arab senior official to Tripoli after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, and his visit to Algeria, in addition to his meeting last week with his Libyan and Tunisian counterparts to agree on an integrated framework for cooperation between the Arab spring states in the political, diplomatic and security sides. He also noted that Amr will head directly after the Asian tour to Baghdad to attend the Arab summit hosted in the Iraqi capital. The spokesman also pointed to the Foreign Minister's tour in Africa, “where he visited 6 countries to boost ties with the Nile Basin countries, and met his Ethiopian counterpart three times in the past five months between Cairo and Addis Ababa, where they agreed on the establishment of a joint committee on the Renaissance Dam, assessing its impact on Egypt's quota of Nile water.” Roshdy said that the FM met with his Indian counterpart and held a joint committee session between the two countries, and that he will also visit three of the largest countries on the Asian continent during the current tour, “which aims mainly to revive activate Egypt's relations with those countries in the fields of economy and trade, and that he will explain the nature of the transitional phase in Egypt and to reassure the business communities and investors in those countries about the stability of the situation in the country, as well as to encourage them to resume and increase tourist groups to Egypt.” Amr will meet in Beijing with Shi Jin, Vice President of China, and will discuss with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi boosting Chinese investment in Egypt, as well as the situation in the Arab region and in particular Syria, the ministry said. Amr will then visit Tokyo on Thursday for three days, to hold a “series of intensive meetings with senior Japanese officials, including Speaker of Parliament and Minister of Foreign Affairs and the leaders of the Ministry of Commerce and the Board of Trustees of the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology, and also meet the heads of major Japanese companies to discuss opportunities and advantages of investing in Egypt.” The FM will also visit the city of Fukushima, which was hit hard by the tsunami that impacted Japan in March 2011. “The promotion of investment in Egypt, will a key focus for Amr visit to the South Korean capital Seoul, where he will meet with the Minister of Finance and Chairman of the Investment Authority, as well as his meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade,” Roshdy added. The spokesman said that Amr will conclude the tour by attending the nuclear security summit to be held in Seoul on March 27 with the participation of the heads and representatives of 53 countries, along with UN Secretary General and heads of the European Council and the European Commission and Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/GSx1R Tags: Asia, Business, Egypt, featured, Trade Section: Business, East Asia, Egypt, Latest News
