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More trade, collaboration with Brazil ahead: Egypt and Brazil inked a protocol aimedat facilitating Brazilian beef, pork, and poultry exports to Egypt by aligning the two countries’ meat inspection systems during Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s time in Cairo where he met with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, according to a statement from the Brazilian president’s office. The two fellow Brics members also talked up the possibility of direct flights connecting the two countries and inked an MoU aimed at increasing cooperation in the field of science, technology, and innovation.
DATA POINT: Bilateral trade between the two countries reached USD 2.8 bn in 2023, according to Brazil’s state news agency. Brazilian exports to Egypt accounted for USD 1.8 bn, while Egypt’s exports to the Latin American economy came in at USD 489 mn for the year.
Lula wants to balance our trade relationship: “We want a win-win trade relationship, a relationship in which both countries win. We don’t want a one-way trade relationship. What we want is to buy and sell, sell and buy, so that the end result is a balanced trade balance and that everyone is happy selling and buying and seeing our economies grow.” Lula said during a joint presser (watch, runtime: 18:50)
Part of a wider plan: The two leaders agreed to elevate their relationship to a “strategic partnership,” according to an Ittihadiya statement. “I suggested that the president elevate our relationship to the level of a strategic partnership. Because two countries with populations as large as Egypt’s in Africa and Brazil’s in Latin America cannot have small-scale relations,” Lula told reporters. They agreed to bolster relations in all “political, economic, industrial, agricultural, and cultural fields,” El Sisi said.
“From any angle, the scale of the violence committed against the 2 mn Palestinians in Gaza cannot be justified,” Lula told reporters. El Sisi mirrored Lula’s comments by stating that “we agree that an immediate and sustained ceasefire is very important, as is the necessity of getting humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza.”
ICYMI: This was Lula’s first official visit to the country since he took office in January and El Sisi will be heading to Brazil in November to take part in the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
