Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi received on Tuesday, the Prime Minister of Iraq, Mohammed Shiaa Al-Sudani; who is visiting Egypt at the head of a high-level government delegation. The Iraqi delegation includes the Deputy Prime Ministers, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Planning, the Ministers of Housing, Trade and Electricity, and the Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, to participate in the Egyptian-Iraqi Joint Higher Committee. The meeting was also attended by Egypt's Prime Minister, Mostafa Madbouly, and a number of Egyptian ministers and senior officials. The meeting discussed ways to upgrade the frameworks of bilateral cooperation between the two countries in various fields, especially in terms of security cooperation, trade exchange, investments, and infrastructure development. Views were also exchanged on Arab and regional issues of common interest. The keenness to strengthen joint Arab action was emphasized in a way that contributes to addressing the multiple challenges facing the Arab nation at the current stage, and in a way that achieves the aspirations of the peoples of the region. During the meeting, the president affirmed Egypt's unwavering support for the security and stability of Iraq, and Cairo's keenness to strengthen and diversify the frameworks of mutual bilateral cooperation in various political, economic, commercial and cultural fields, both on the bilateral level or through the tripartite cooperation mechanism with Jordan. For his part, the Iraqi Prime Minister praised the close and historical fraternal ties that unite the two countries, stressing Iraq's keenness to strengthen the well-established bilateral cooperation mechanisms with Egypt and to build on the results of his recent visit to Egypt last March. He stressed that the frequency of mutual visits between the two sides reflects the keenness to push bilateral relations to new horizons, in addition to the promotion of benefiting from Egyptian capabilities and competencies in various fields. On the sidelines of his visit to Egypt, the Iraqi Prime Minister and his Egyptian counterpart chaired the activities of the Iraqi-Egyptian Business Forum. Al-Sudani said that 11 cooperation agreements have been signed with Egypt towards further development of bilateral relations with Egypt. He referred to the Iraqi government's determination to localize the pharmaceutical industries, and to enable producers and manufacturers to enter Iraq to establish their factories, as well as projects for the manufacturing and petrochemical industries. He also indicated Iraq's need for factories producing modern irrigation technologies in order to face water scarcity. The Iraqi Prime Minister emphasized the support of partnerships between the Egyptian and Iraqi private sectors.
