Minister of Tourism Hisham Zaazou expects the number of Russian tourists visiting Egypt to reach 3 million by the end of 2014, he said during a tourism conference held in Moscow on Monday. Around 2.4 million Russian tourists visited Egypt in 2013 and spent 23.7m tourist nights, taking the lead in the list of nationalities visiting Egypt. On Sunday, a number of private Egyptian airlines, including Almasria Universal and Nesma, announced their intentions to launch new routes to and from Europe in order to boost the flow of tourists to the country. Last week, Zaazou signed an agreement with a number of Indian travel companies to encourage a target of 1 million tourists to Egypt by the end of 2017. EgyptAir, in cooperation with the Egyptian-Indian Friendship Association, would facilitate the flights from New Delhi and Mumbai to Cairo starting in May, a ministerial statement noted. On Monday, the Egyptian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Jordan Khaled Tharwat participated in a press conference, held at the Egyptian General Authority for Tourism in Oman, to discuss approaches to activate ecotourism between the two countries. During the conference, Jordanian tourism companies agreed to visit Egypt with the aim of promoting joint tourism between the two companies. On the same day, the Egyptian ambassador to Jordan held an exhibition for Egyptian handicrafts at his house, under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Trade, Industry and Investment. The exhibition comes within the framework of the Egyptian embassy's efforts to support Egypt's economy and promote the country's products. The exhibition aims to open a new market for the Egyptian products, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an official statement. The event was attended by a number of "prestigious personalities in Jordan along with members of the diplomatic corps". On 15 March, the Ambassador also inaugurated the annual exhibition for Egyptian products in Jordon at the Four Seasons Hotel. A large group of textile, wood, silver and carpet producers and designers participated in the two-day event. In December, then Minister of Foreign trade and Industry Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour announced plans to establish a Handicrafts Export Council in order to increase exports and strengthen competitiveness in the international market. "Handicrafts are considered one of [the economy's] ‘vital industry sectors," said Abdel Nour. "The sector's major importance comes as it is a heavily labour-intensive and a major employer, it also does not require large funds to operate."
