CAIRO -- Cooperation between Egypt and China has recently been witnessing "a very big development," and Egypt is looking forward to enhancing the strategic partnership with China in the coming stage, Egyptian Housing Minister Mostafa Madbouli told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on Monday.
Madbouli's remarks came after his ministry signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a Chinese leading firm to provide sanitation for 260 villages in four Egyptian provinces.
"The Egyptian-Chinese cooperation is witnessing a very big development lately. If we review the projects in which the Chinese side cooperates with Egypt, we will find they are all what we call'national projects,'" the minister said.
The Egyptian minister cited Chinese projects in Egypt in the fields of public service utilities, especially sanitation, urban transport, energy, land reclamation and establishment of new towns in Egypt's national one-million-acre reclamation project.
On Monday, the Egyptian housing minister signed a MoU with China Gezhouba Group Company Ltd. on a one-billion-U.S.-dollar sanitation project, which he described to be "extremely important for Egypt" as it goes in line with the government's priorities and provides direct services for Egyptian citizens.
"So, the Chinese side is currently taking part in very important projects to Egypt and we hope that we activate these MoUs and enhance our strategic partnership in general," Madbouli added.
In late 2014, Egypt and China decided to elevate their bilateral ties to the level of "comprehensive strategic partnership" during Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's official visit to Beijing. Sisi then agreed with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to boost political, economic, military, cultural and technological cooperation between the two countries.
"In fact, I believe the cooperation between China and Egypt will serve both sides and will not only serve Egypt unilaterally," according to Madbouli, "because Egypt represents the gateway of Africa and so China can cooperate with Egypt as a regional portal and start joint projects with Egypt in many African states."
The Egyptian housing minister expressed his belief that more cooperation between Egypt and China is expected in the near future not only on joint projects inside Egypt but in Africa in general.
During Egypt Economic Development Conference in March, President Sisi made it clear that China is among the "advanced countries" that Egypt counts on for economic development. It shows that Egypt eyes further Chinese investment and joint projects four years after its political turmoil.
"As the Egyptian government, we are looking forward to increasing cooperation with China so largely, and we hope that we activate the thought that we are a strategic partner with China in the coming stage," Madbouli added.
In Egypt, the most populous Arab state where some 40 percent people of its over 90 million population are still living under the poverty line, housing has always been one of the pressing problems over the past few decades. The current government is trying to relieve the situation through a "one-million-apartment" national project that is designed to serve the youth and low-income people in particular.
Madbouli said that the project is carried out by the state as part of the social housing program. It's going "very well" and the government is working on 250,000 housing units and is now in the process of handing 70,000 of them, he said.
"This is the biggest housing project adopted by a country in the Middle East and one of the biggest three housing projects in the whole world; that a country builds one million housing units in five years," the Egyptian minister told Xinhua. Enditem
