The Egyptian-Iraqi Joint High Committee has inked a total of 12 cooperation agreements, including on grain storage, transportation, and commerce, according to a statement released last week. While the details are sparse, here is what we know so far:

#1- Grain silos: An MoU was inked between Egypt’s Supply and Internal Trade Ministry and Iraqi Trade Ministry to facilitate the exchange of expertise in silo construction, operation, and maintenance.

REMEMBER– Iraq is expanding silos capacity: Iraq signed an agreement earlier in January with Swiss-based Bühler and Egypt’s Samco to build five modern grain silos with a total storage capacity of 60k.

#2- Land transport: The two countries’ Transportation Ministries also signed an MoU to improve the transport of passengers and goods by land. No further details were made available on the agreement.

#3- Commerce: An MoU was inked between the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of Iraqi Chambers of Commerce by their presidents, Egypt’s Mohamed Saada and his Iraqi counterpart Abdul Razzaq Al Zuhairi. No further details were disclosed.

REMEMBER- Egypt's exports to Iraq saw a y-o-y increase of 12% for the first 10M of 2024, and the country is targeting a 41% increase in trade volume this year.

MORE TRADE MOVES BY EGYPT-

Kenya + Egypt enhance trade ties: Egypt has inked a cooperation agreement with Kenya to establish the Egyptian-Kenyan Business Council in a bid to enhance the economic and investment ties between the two countries and increase trade volumes, according to a statement released last week. The two countries also signed a cooperation agreement on ports, but no further details on the cooperation were available. The agreements were part of a dozen agreements signed during the Kenyan President William Ruto's visit to Egypt in late January.

Timely move: The agreements come at a time of shrinking trade volume between both countries, which decreased by 11.1% y-o-y in 2024 to USD 567 mn, Business Today reported last week, citing CAPMAS data. Egypt’s exports to Kenya fell by 6.11% y-o-y in 2024 to USD 307 mn, while some imports decreased by 16.4% y-o-y to USD 260 mn during the same time period.

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