It's my pleasure to extend my warm and sincere greetings to the people and the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh while we are celebrating the 54th anniversary of the 23rd of July Egyptian revolution in 1952. Egypt was one of the first countries that supported Bangladesh to get recognition as a friend and a great Muslim country and was one of the pioneers to establish diplomatic relations with Bangladesh in 1973, since then the two countries are paying more concern to push forward and strengthen relations. The bilateral relations witnessed unprecedented developments in the last two years specially in the field of investments when the Egyptian Telecommunication Group, Orascom Telecom, entered the Bangladeshi market by investing 300 million Dollars and this number is expected to increase, we are also looking forward to attract more Egyptian investments to benefit from the attractive climate of investment in Bangladesh as we hope to see in the near future Bangladeshi investments in Egypt to benefit from the new investment laws and the attractive investment climate which occupies high priority on the agenda of the hon'ble president Mohamed Hosni Mubarak. The preparations are going on for holding the first meeting of the joint commission as a framework for greater areas of cooperation and these preparations already have achieved significant progress and we hope it will be held in the near future. As for scholarships and Technical assistance Egypt presents to the Bangladeshi students annually tens of scholarships to study in Al-Azhar University and Institutes, as well as the other Egyptian Universities, and on the filed of Technical assistance Egypt provides annually a number of training programs to the Bangladeshi experts in the field of Agriculture. It's well known that Egypt is one of the top attracting touristic destinations in the world as it is privileged by 40% of the world's monuments as well as beaches, resorts, desert safari programs and the nature which attract millions of tourists every year from all over the world including Bangladesh and the number of Bangladeshi tourists to Egypt is increasing day by day and we hope that in the coming years more Bangladenshis to visit Egypt. Egypt and Bangladesh are members of a number of Regional Organizations such as NAM, OIC, D8 as well as International Organizations and the bilateral relations in this field witness cooperation which emerged coordination in exchanging support for occupying international posts , as well as coordination between the two leaderships and the frequent meetings between the leaders, the last but not the least was between the Hon'ble President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak and the Hon'ble Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia on the sideline of WSIS in Geneva in December 2003 was an excellent opportunity to exchange views on international, regional and bilateral issues of mutual concern. The two foreign ministers give importance to regular meetings on the sidelines of international and regional meetings the latest being on the sideline of the General Assembly meetings in September 2005 in New York. The hon'ble foreign minister of Egypt H.E.Mr.Ahmed Aboul Gheit is expected to visit Bangladesh soon upon invitation from his counterpart H.E.Mr.M.Morshed Khan hon'ble foreign minister of Bangladesh. I'd like to seize this opportunity to praise the achievements of Bangladesh in all fields specially education, healthcare, women empowerment and poverty alleviation and I'd like to conclude by extending my best wishes to the friendly Bangladeshi people and for their welfare and prosperity.
Ismail Abdel Rahman Ghoneim Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt
|