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Transcript of Special Briefing by Foreign Secretary on the Visit of President of Egypt to India (January 25, 2023)

India - Ministry of External Affairs

January 25, 2023

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: A very good afternoon to all of you. Thank you for joining us on this special briefing on the occasion of the State visit of the President of Egypt to India as the Chief Guest of the Republic Day. We are doing it out of the Sushma Swaraj Bhawan, a different location as you would have noticed. To give us a sense of the visit and we just concluded the conversations that he had with the Prime Minister, we have the privilege of having with us Foreign Secretary Shri Vinay Kwatra. Also joining us on the dais, Dr. Ausaf Sayeed Secretary (CPV and OIA), Ajit Gupte, Ambassador to Egypt, as well as Pradeep Rajpurohit, Joint Secretary (WANA) in the Ministry. Sir may I hand over the floor to you.

Shri Vinay Kwatra, Foreign Secretary: Thank you very much and good afternoon to dear friends for being here for this special briefing on the visit of the President of Egypt, Excellency Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. He arrived last night, visit commenced this morning. At the invitation of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi His Excellency Mr. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, President of Arab Republic of Egypt, is on a state visit to India, also as the Chief Guest of the 74th Republic Day celebrations. As I said, President Sisi arrived yesterday, and has just concluded his official talks with the Prime Minister, both in the restricted and in the official delegation level format. Earlier this morning, President Sisi was accorded a ceremonial reception at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan after which the External Affairs Minister, Dr. Jaishankar called on him. Tomorrow, President Sisi will participate in the Republic Day parade as the Chief Guest, as I said. And we will also witness participation of a contingent from the Egyptian armed forces in the parade. Vice President of India will call on the visiting dignitary tomorrow evening.

President Sisi's visit as the Chief Guest on our Republic Day signifies these special and unique bonds of relationship, civilization linkages, and shared struggle for freedom that India and Egypt have nurtured over the years. This year is also special in India-Egypt bilateral relations, as both countries are celebrating 75 years of establishment of diplomatic relations between our two countries. As we have announced some time ago, India has also invited Egypt as a guest country during the G20 Presidency of India this year. High level political engagements have been an integral aspect of our bilateral ties. This is the third visit of President Sisi to India. His first was in October 2015 to participate in the Third India-Africa Forum Summit. His second was in September 2016, which was also a state visit and this one is third. Earlier last year, last quarter of 2022 we had three senior ministerial visits from India to Egypt. Raksha Mantri Shri Rajanth Singh Ji in September 22; EAM Dr. Jaishankar in October 22; and the Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Shri Bhupender Yadav Ji in November 22 for COP 27. And we have had return visits from Egypt of the Ministers of Communication and Information Technology earlier this month.

Our Prime Minister Modi and President Sisi held extensive and productive discussions today, very warm conversations, very warm interaction between the two leaders. They appreciated each other's role, not just in giving the driving momentum to the relationship, but also ensuring that the decisions that the two countries take are implemented in a time-bound and a quick fashion. Discussions were on a whole range of bilateral issues, including on political, security elements, trade, investment, technology and other elements of economic partnership and people to people ties. One of the key highlights of today's interactions between the two leaders and the outcome of their discussions is the elevation of the bilateral relationship to strategic partnership comprising essentially of four key pillars. The first, pillar of political and security cooperation. Two, the whole segment of economic engagement constitutes the second pillar. Three, the scientific and academic collaboration and four, wider cultural and people to people contacts.

President Sisi appreciated Prime Minister Modi's invitation to Egypt as a guest country for the G20. Both leaders agreed to work together during India's G20 Presidency, and reiterated, shared their common interest and priorities, which the Global South should focus on and through the India's Presidency could channel its priorities into the G20. If I could briefly touch upon each of the pillars of the strategic cooperation and how it figured in today's conversation and how it would be positioned going forward in terms of bilateral relationship. The defence and security element of these strategic pillar, of course comprised of defense. Again, within defense, there are four, five sub elements, each one of them sort of was highlighted during discussions - defense training, defense exercises, cooperation both in the fields of the platforms and the equipment, exercises, and also industrial partnerships between the two countries to forge a stronger base for defense partnership. In the political and security domain, counterterrorism, cybersecurity cooperation and countering radicalization featured as three of the important sub elements of the discussions between the two leaders. Both leaders strongly condemned the use of terrorism by countries as a foreign policy instrument and called for zero tolerance to terrorism and for all those who encourage, support and finance terrorism, provide sanctuaries to terror groups, whatever their motivation may be. Given the commonality of challenges of terrorism, that both India and Egypt face, the two leaders also emphasized the need for concerted and coordinated action bilaterally between the two countries to see how our cooperation can become more broa-based, deeper in the field of terrorism and how we can also together join hands in the larger international platforms to ensure that international community comes together to act against the challenge of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. One more element in the field of defense that I wanted to highlight. Just even as we speak, a joint exercise of the special forces of both sides, it is called Cyclone-I, is currently being held in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Also for the first time, India has been invited for Egypt's tri-services exercises called Bright Star, which is to be held later in the fourth quarter of this year in September 2023.

Coming to the second pillar of strategic partnership, the economic engagement aspect - both leaders assessed, one, the robustness in bilateral economic engagement; two, the dynamism; and three its substance, which covers the whole range of economic activity of human endeavour. They appreciated that the trade quantum, which currently stands at close to $7 billion in next few years would increase to $12 billion, that's the target they fixed. And in this context, they also discussed ways to further intensify trade based economic engagement in the space of renewable energy, pharmaceuticals, infrastructure, IT etc. Naturally, two-way investments, the capital flows between the two countries also figured as an important element of discussion.

The two other elements, on which the two leaders focused their attention and pushed their systems to focus on - one was the developmental template that responds to the need of people of each country, how there are learnings in our bilateral cooperation in this field. And the other element which is that how do societies like the Indian society and the Egyptian societies work together to harness technology and intensify and deepen the interface between technology to meet developmental challenges. And I think there are significant complementarities and learnings which the two leaders highlighted for both the Indian system and the Egyptian system to take from each other. Given the challenges of food, fertilizer and energy that both India and Egypt face, the two leaders agreed in their discussions that the two countries will work together to ensure and build supply chains which are reliable in the field of food, fertilizer and energy, including, if required, through government to government partnership, whether it's in the field of food security, or in the field of fertilizer security. Prime Minister Modi, of course, congratulated President Sisi for Egypt's successful hosting of the COP-27, and for the Sharm El Sheikh declaration on loss and damaged fund.

In the scientific and academic pillar of cooperation, the two leaders discussed how the institutional engagements and partnerships across the wide set of areas could be strengthened between the two countries and we could take forward. In the people to people exchanges, tourism was highlighted as an important segment of growing cooperation between the two countries. Direct air connectivity of which there is already a certain frequency which is there, but efforts to increase it. And also, cooperation in the field of establishing museums, which showcase the cultures of both the countries, that was another element of capacity building and institutional partnership between the two countries which was the focus of conversation today.

Finally, the two leaders also shared their perspective on regional and global issues, including on multilateral cooperation. They touched upon the changing dynamics in multiple regions of the world. Of course, the derivative impact of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and its implications, as I mentioned earlier on the food, fertilizer and energy challenges that both our societies face. The discussions between the two leaders, as I mentioned earlier on, are extremely warm and productive, and both reaffirmed common understanding on the way forward in different areas of bilateral relationship of which I highlighted some of them. Today in a while from now, President Sisi will also interact with the Indian business community. And later in the evening tonight, the Honourable President of India would be hosting a state banquet for President Sisi. In terms of the specific deliverables which were announced during the visit and agreements were exchanged -there was exchange of commemorative postage stamp on 75 years of establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations. And there were five MoUs in various areas, including one for cooperation between CERT to CERT; generic IT based cooperation; media engagement; and culture and youth matters between the two countries. The joint statement, which has been agreed between the two countries, would be released tomorrow evening after the conclusion of all discussions have taken place. I will end here and if there are any questions, would be happy to take.

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Thank you very much sir. We will take questions. I see there is a lot of interest. Please introduce yourself and organization.

Pranay Upadhyay: Sir Pranay Upadhyay ABP se, mera sawal iss chiz ko lekar hai ki Egypt ki economy iss samay kaafi sankat se gujar rahi hai, to aise mein hum jab Egypt ke saath apne rishton ko rannaitik star par le ja rahe hain aur bharat ke nivesh ko badhaane ki baat kah rahe hain President Sisi, aise mein bharatiy nivesh ke liye suraksha ki kya woh cheeze hongi jo hum apeksha kar rahe hai aur humne ensure ki hain aaj ki batchit men? (Questioned in Hindi; Approximate Translation) Sir Pranay Upadhyay from ABP, my question is that Egypt's economy is going through a crisis right now, so at the time when we are taking our relationship to a strategic level and talking about increasing India's investment, what are our expectations from the Egyptian side regarding the security of Indian investments, which we would have discussed in today's talk?

Huma Siddiqui: Sir my name is Huma Siddiqui. And I'm from the Financial Express. Two questions. One is was there any talk about space cooperation because Egypt has recently announced that it has a space agency. And two in the agri sector what are the two countries wanting to do in agriculture sector.

Sridhar: Sir, Sridhar from Asian Age. We heard the Prime Minister say that both countries had endorsed firm action to counter cross border terrorism. So was there any discussion on Pakistan's role in sponsoring cross border terror? And secondly, you mentioned the Egyptian interest in Indian defense platforms. Could you be a little specific on which platforms they're particularly interested in acquiring? Thank you.

Sidhant: Hi, sir. I'm Sidhant from WION. My question is how big is this a diplomatic victory for India in terms of its engagement with Egypt? India already has good relationship with Saudi Arabia and UAE. I'm asking this also because last year in the backdrop of certain comments, it looked like that our relationship with many countries in West Asia might be impacted.

Shri Vinay Kwatra, Foreign Secretary: Thank you. Pranay jo aapka prashn tha Egypt ki arthik samasyaon ko leke or in arthik samasyaon ke maddhenazar kiss tarah se donon deshon ke jo arthik sambandh hai usmein jo nivesh ke prashn hain unko kiss prakar se sanchalit isamen kiya jaega. Dekhiye, jaisa ki maine apni praarambhik tippani mein bhi kaha, jahan tak bharat-Egypt aarthik sambandhon ka prashn hai, usake jo vibhinn pahlu hai, yadi aap vyapar ka pahlun lein to wo apni achchhi gati aur kshamataon ke saath agrasar hai. Jaise ki maine bataya lagbhag 7.2 billion dollar ka aaj ka visthapit trade hai aur aage aane vale chand varsho mein ye apekshit hai aur anumanit hai ki ye lagbhag 12 billion dollar tak pahunchega. Nivesh ki jo sambhavnaen donon desho mein hai, woh ek to jo sarkari star hai usape bhi hoti hai lekin adhikanshtayah jo nivesh niji kshetra mein hai uske hisab se hota hai. Hum jab bhi aur hamari industry jab bhi kisi desh mein nivesh ke prashn dekhti hai toh woh arthik ecosystem ke, us desh ke arthik system ke har pahaluon ke maddhenazar pe dekhti hai. Jahan tak mujhe gyat hai, hamara abhi tak ka jo nivesh hai Egypt mein lagbhag 3.5 billion dollar ka hai lagbhag 3.54 billion dollar hai aur jo hamare sangyan men jo jankari hai wo ye hai ki arthik sambandh, nivesh sambandh, vyapar sambandh tinon ki disha sakaratmak hai aur n keval sakaratmak hai apitu sudridh bhi hai. (Answered in Hindi; Approximate Translation)

Pranay, your question was about the economic problems of Egypt and how in view of these economic problems, the issues of investment in the context of economic relations between the two countries be looked at. See, as I said in my opening remarks, as far as India-Egypt economic relations are concerned, the various aspects of it, if you look at the broader trade aspect, it is moving forward with good speed and potential. As I mentioned, the existing trade is $7.2 billion and it is estimated to reach around $12 billion in coming years. The possibilities of investment in both countries, one is at the government level, but more importantly it's at the private sector level. Whenever we and our industry look at possibilities of investment in a country, it looks at every aspect of the economic ecosystem, of that country. As far as I know, our investment so far in Egypt is about 3.5 billion dollars, about 3.54 billion dollars to be precise and what we know, in our knowledge, is that the direction of economic relations, investment relations, trade relations is positive and is not only positive but also strong.

Your question on space cooperation... There is already a joint working group between the two countries in the field of space cooperation. What we do expect as a country is that the nature of dynamism in the field of space, whether it is the question of launch capabilities, or it's a question of building payloads, integrating the payloads with the launch capabilities, building of satellites, this is a field and space on which there is enormous capacity which is available in the Indian context. And I'm sure going forward those capacities will find a very substantive link, both in the scientific domain but also in the commercial space for cooperation in the field of space. In the agricultural sector, as I mentioned to you earlier on, the complete supply chain for the food and fertilizer security did get focussed as an element of discussion. As you know that one of the cascading impacts of the Russia Ukraine conflict has been on the global supply of food products and food security has been impacted. So, the two leaders did discuss as to going forward, what the two countries can do together so that the food security concerns are addressed. Prime Minister did speak very strongly that there are ancillary elements of the food sector, including in the food processing sector, in which the private sector in India and the industry in India would be very, very keen to cooperate. My colleague just also tells me that elements of trade in rice, non-basmati rice particularly, and some other food products, which are also a strong element of trade-based linkage between India-Egypt, also constitute an important segment of the cooperation in this particular sector.

The question from Asian Age on counterterrorism and on the defense platforms. The two leaders did spend some time in talking about this challenge, the nature of this challenge, as both countries face it. Some of the specifics of this challenge. Given the nature and specifics, what is it that the two countries can do together? What specific areas can the two systems take forward in cooperating in a manner that the challenges that Egypt faces for example, from its context, the challenges that we face in terms of our context, understanding how we address these challenges, not just at the level of the systems, but also at the level of the societies. Whether it's the challenge of radicalization, the spread of radicalization, and how different parts of the government come together, talk about it, exchange their perspectives, understand its dimensions and then act to address those challenges in a comprehensive manner. The two leaders did appreciate that this is an important security challenge for both the countries, both the societies, and they appreciate that there is a considerable scope and there is considerable leadership that the two countries' partnership in this field can provide for the rest of the region and for the world also. On the defense, as I mentioned to you, there are multiple sub segments of defense cooperation, which featured during the discussions - platforms, equipment, and the related linkages of how industries of the two countries will come together on some of the equipments and some of the platforms also did feature in the leaders' discussion. I think, at this stage, I'd rather not get into the specifics of those. But when they looked at defense, they looked at it more from a strategic dimension rather than from a very transactional aspect of this one.

Sidhant, your question with regard to how exactly is this visit seen. I think if you look at our, India's cooperation across the whole region, in that part of the world, you would actually find that the extent of robustness, strength, diversity and depth, which is there in India's cooperation with pretty much almost all the countries of the region, actually, is a very strong and positive story in itself. And as I mentioned in my opening remarks, our links with Egypt are civilizational, and our relationships, go back to, you know, we're celebrating 75th year of our bilateral ties. If you look at our history, and even if you look at our recent history, let's say post 2014, our engagement has actually been I mean - this is the third visit of the Egyptian President; last number of ministerial visits, I spoke to you about; the extent of partnership that the two countries have in the field of trade, technology, tourism and capital; Egyptian invitation to participate in the G20 Presidency; Egyptian participation also in the recently held Voice of Global South Summit. For us, Egypt is among one of the key strategic partners of that region. But we also enjoy a very strong and robust partnership with region as a whole. So, I really don't see, you know, one against or one versus the other. It's one stands in its positivity and strength in itself and what we do with other stands on itself.

Manash: Sir, this is Manash Pratim Bhuyan from Press Trust of India. My question is just related to Pranay's question. Egypt has been reeling under a massive economic crisis and they're facing specially food crisis. And last year, we sent around 61,000 tons of wheat and lifting some restrictions. And has the Egyptian President sought further wheat from India to deal with the food crisis that Egypt been facing sir?

Shashank: Good afternoon sir. Shashank Mattoo from the Mint. Sir, India has been making much of an outreach to West Asia in recent times. And with organizations like the I2U2, much of the focus is also on economic investment and on food security. Egypt and UAE also have good ties. Are we looking to make something of a trilateral conversation with UAE on economic investment?

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Trilateral with Egypt and...

Shashank: With UAE and Egypt to talk about these questions or integrate Egypt into I2U2's conversation?

Yeshi: This is Yeshi Seli from The New Indian Express. Sir was there any talk of trade in rupee considering the fact that Nigeria and Tanzania are already trading in Indian rupee.

Suhasini: Suhasini Haidar from the Hindu. Just to add to Shashank's question, since you mentioned Israel, I think inadvertently the idea of Egypt actually taking an interest in Indian defense systems, in equipment in that strategic part, is that something that will require India to have a conversation, trilateral conversation or otherwise with its other big defense partner in the region, which is Israel? Also, does the joint statement include any part on the Palestinian people? And a small question, if I may, on the visits. You know, an Indian Prime Minister has not visited Egypt since 2009. And I think Prime Minister Modi missed going in 2020 due to COVID. He was supposed to go last year for the COP 27, but he wasn't able to. So, are we expecting him to go before President Sisi comes back for the G20?

Akhilesh Suman: Sir, I'm Akhilesh Suman from Sansad TV. You know sir, Egypt also hold Suez Canal. And is there any plan that India and Egypt are going to cooperate in security issues related to Suez Canal or any economic activity around Suez Canal, because last year, we have signed an MoU of $8 billion about green hydrogen. So what is the status of that?

Shri Vinay Kwatra, Foreign Secretary: Let me just come to the last question which you asked on the green hydrogen. To our understanding there have been two or three MoUs between the companies in India and Egypt. It's not government to government agreement or MOU, which has been signed, according to our understanding, the information that is available with us, which you can cross validate, there might be some error in numbers. It is roughly close to $18 billion worth of project proposals on which the private companies have entered into some kind of an understanding to invest in Egypt. We will see how that part unfolds going forward.

On the PTI question relating to the food crisis, as I mentioned to you in my remarks also, the challenges of food, fertilizer and energy security, and how do India and Egypt come together to ensure that the supply challenges that we face in each of this space could be addressed through bilateral cooperation, was an important element of discussions between the two leaders. Naturally, how would this cooperation translate into meeting specific elements of security, let's say of food in this case, including wheat as my colleague just mentioned, it also includes non-basmati rice, in case of fertilizer, the phosphatic fertilizers, which is India's need and Egypt has strong capacities in this field, all this did come up during conversation and we would expect that in weeks and months ahead, the systems on the two sides will carry forward this discussion and translate it into specific understandings between the two countries.

The I2U2 part and we have spoken about this and frankly discussed also at some length in our previous pressers also. I2U2's principle driving force, the momentum is economic, focuses on specific economic project. The discussion which the two leaders have today, the President of Egypt and Prime Minister of India, focused on the full range of our strategic cooperation, and not just the elevation of relationship to strategic partnership, but also specific elements under it. I described at some length four sub pillars under that of political security, economic, science and technology and also the people to people linkages. I really don't see how I2U2 project based cooperation, which stands on its own merit, which relies on India's cooperation with each of the countries involved in I2U2 and how India and Egypt cooperation which is as I said very robust and dynamic, extensive... You know, nature of cooperation is such that it evolves. So, we'll see how it evolves into what shape in terms of whether there is a scope in our bilateral ties to interface with the other countries of the region etc., It would depend of course, on individual domains also of the cooperation.

Rupees settlement of bilateral trade...Look when we talk of economic engagement, it is very natural to look at all the process based solutions, process based methodologies, which can give a boost to such trade. If going forward in our discussions, we find out that rupees settlement can give it a boost and it is our effort, it is our endeavour, it is a strong line of our objective to try and see that international trade that India does increasingly if it can get settled in some geographies in rupee based denominations, then there is a complex mix of regulatory guidance, process based solutions and on the ground implementation between the banking community and the trading community, for all this to converge together and translate itself into specific rupee based settlement of the trade platform. So, that is something which you know, the two systems would continue to discuss. But it is our effort to pursue that.

Suhasini, your question on the India-Egypt defense cooperation. First of all, what is there in the joint statement, what is not there in the joint statement I think you will see when the joint statement comes out tomorrow evening. But on the very limited element of India-Egypt defense cooperation, and it's a four or actually five sub segments that I mentioned, which is exercises, training, equipment, platforms, and, more importantly, how industry to industry cooperation in this field...I think that stands purely on the bilateral merit and would be pursued as such in the bilateral space. Sansad TV's question I have already answered.

Visit...Look, as you yourself mentioned, Prime Minister Modi was due to travel to Egypt in 2020. But we all know the pressure and the tragic compulsions of COVID which hit the entire world at that time and so that couldn't materialize. It is our effort, Prime Minister was very clear that it would be his priority to ensure that he travels to Egypt as soon as the dates etc. can be scheduled between the two countries.

Shri Arindam Bagchi, Official Spokesperson: Thank you for joining this special media briefing and thank you also to Secretary Dr. Ausaf Sayeed, Ambassador Ajit Gupte and Joint Secretary Pradeep Rajpurohit.