{"id":249454,"date":"2023-06-24T20:07:50","date_gmt":"2023-06-24T14:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=249454"},"modified":"2023-08-31T16:29:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T10:59:28","slug":"squaring-the-circle-at-the-india-egypt-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/squaring-the-circle-at-the-india-egypt-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"Squaring the circle at the India-Egypt summit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/strong>– The post is based on the article \u201cA doorway to an entrepreneurial university\u201d <\/strong>published in \u201cThe Hindu\u201d <\/strong>on 24th June 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Syllabus: <\/strong>GS2- Bilateral groupings and agreements<\/p>\n

Relevance- <\/strong>India and Egypt bilateral relationship<\/p>\n

News<\/strong>– Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Egypt (June 24-25, 2023).<\/p>\n

What is the status of the bilateral relationship between India and Egypt?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Historical and civilisational connect<\/strong>– Historically, India-Egypt ties are perhaps the oldest civilisational link<\/strong>. In 2750 BCE, the Pharaoh Sahure<\/strong> sent ships to peninsular India.<\/p>\n

By the middle of the second millennium BCE, Egyptian mummie<\/strong>s were wrapped in muslin dyed with indigo, both from India.<\/p>\n

Past centuries of contacts produced plenty of goodwill and verbal shibboleths. Both countries advocated for decolonisation and favoured non-alignment.<\/p>\n

Trade and investment<\/strong>– India\u2019s trade with Egypt stood at $6,061 million in 2022-23<\/strong>. It has declined by 17% over the previous year. Nearly a third of it was petroleum related.<\/p>\n

India was Egypt\u2019s sixth largest trading partner<\/strong>, while Egypt was India\u2019s 38th<\/strong>. Indian investments<\/strong> in Egypt were spread over 50 projects totalling $3.15 billion.<\/strong> Egypt has invested only $37 million in India. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Bilateral institutional mechanisms<\/strong>– India has a Joint Commission, Foreign Office Consultations and at least nine joint working groups. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Its Defence and External Affairs Ministers<\/strong> visited Egypt during the past year. It had a bilateral summit<\/strong> less than five months ago when the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, visited India.<\/p>\n

What are the opportunities that can be leveraged for improving bilateral relationships?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Egypt is a large country having a population of 105 million and an economy ($378 billion)<\/strong>. It is politically stable, and its socio-economic conditions<\/strong> are quite like India.<\/p>\n

Egypt\u2019s largest imports<\/strong> are refined petroleum, wheat, cars, corn and pharmaceuticals. India has the potential to supply all these.<\/p>\n

The Egyptian government has an ambitious infrastructure development agenda<\/strong>, with 49 mega projects including the construction of a New Cairo ($58 billion), and a $23 billion high-speed rail network.<\/p>\n

During 2015-19, Egypt was the world\u2019s third-largest arms importer. <\/strong><\/p>\n

What are the challenges in the India and Egypt bilateral relationship?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Egyptian economy is in a crisis. The huge financial commitments<\/strong> have coincided with a static economy, pandemic, global slowdown and the Ukraine conflict<\/strong>. Tourism <\/strong>has dropped and imports such as cereals have become costly.<\/p>\n

Annual inflation<\/strong> is above 30% and the currency has lost more than half its value since February 2022. Foreign exchange scarcity<\/strong> has forced the deferral of payments for such essentials as wheat.<\/p>\n

The Gulf Arab states initially supported the Egyptian economy with nearly $30 billion. But, they have been lately reluctant due to various governance issues in Egypt. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Egypt\u2019s foreign debt<\/strong> is over $163 billion (43% of the GDP)<\/strong> and its net foreign assets<\/strong> are minus $24.1 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source– The post is based on the article \u201cA doorway to an entrepreneurial university\u201d published in \u201cThe Hindu\u201d on 24th June 2023. Syllabus: GS2- Bilateral groupings and agreements Relevance- India and Egypt bilateral relationship News– Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Egypt (June 24-25, 2023). What is the status of the bilateral relationship between India… Continue reading Squaring the circle at the India-Egypt summit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,239,238,10498],"class_list":["post-249454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-international-relations","tag-ir","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}