President Mohamed Morsi will pay his first visit to China tomorrow, amid expectations that this tour will minimise the US hegemony on the Middle East, while Egypt will be given more opportunities for investment in China. Morsi, during the three-day visit, will hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao on boosting bilateral relations and attracting more investments. Egyptian businessmen said that, if Morsi succeeds and gets whatever he wants from China, this will encourage Egypt to limit its relations with the US. One businessman, Mohamed Qassem, said Morsi's visit, on which he will be accompanied by seven ministers and 70 businessmen, will open a new page with China, the world's second largest economy, stressing that the tour will bolster the two countries' deep relations. At the end of his visit, Morsi will fly from China to Iran for a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, a group of 120 developing nations. On Saturday, a delegation from the Egyptian presidency left for Beijing to prepare for Morsi's visit. The Egyptian President will hold talks with Chinese officials on boosting bilateral co-operation at the cultural, educational and scientific levels, the official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported. Egypt established diplomatic ties with China in 1931 and since then they have signed many agreements and memoranda of understanding. The Egyptian-Chinese Business Council is set to convene during Morsi's visit, to discuss increasing inter-trade and investment. Morsi will also meet with Egyptians living in China in order to brief them on the economic and political developments happening in Egypt, while listening to their ideas about how to attract investments to Egypt. The volume of Egyptian-Chinese trade hit $9 billion in 2011, with Egypt exporting about $1.5 billion and importing about $7.5 billion. Chinese Ambassador to Cairo Song Aiguo said that Egyptian exports to China have increased by 65 per cent since last year, stressing that Chinese companies didn't leave Egypt during the unrest that erupted after the January 25 Revolution. Meanwhile, Morsi's trip to Iran will be the first by an Egyptian president since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The two nations do not have diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level, but have missions staffed by diplomats in each other's country. The Egyptian presidential spokesman said the trip to Tehran will last only a few hours, while Western diplomats say they will be watching to see whether Morsi will use the platform to press for support for change in Syria.
