CAIRO: Trade volume between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, surged during the first quarter of 2012, to 50 percent, compared to the same period of 2011, according to a report by the state-owned news agency MENA on Saturday. The head of the Egyptian Foreign Trade Zone of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Dr. Hussein Omran, said in a statements to the Saudi Newspaper, Al-Watan on Saturday , that trade volume reached record levels during the first three months of 2012, amounting to $1.21 billion compared to $800 million in the same period in 2011. This, an increase of 50 percent. He stressed that amounted to about $4.75 billion by the end of 2011, compared to $4.1 billion in 2010 – an increase of about 16 percent. He expected that the volume of trade exchange between the two countries would exceed $5 billion by the end of 2012. Omran added that Egypt's imports from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during the first quarter of 2012 amounted to about $682 million, while the total Egyptian exports to Saudi Arabia, amounted to about $ 528 million. Omran pointed out that the bilateral trade balance achieved a surplus in favor of Saudi Arabia scoring $300 million during the first quarter, indicating that the total number of Saudi projects set up in Egypt, amounted to about 2315 projects.
