CAIRO, Jul 12 (Aswat Masriya) – Egypt’s trade ministry said on Monday that the country has signed a cooperation agreement with China to study and implement 18 projects with Chinese financial support.

The agreement was made during a joint meeting of the Chinese-Egypt Ministerial Committee, held in Beijing.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is set to participate in the G20 summit in China as a guest of honour at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping. The 2016 summit will take place in September in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.

Chinese-Egyptian relations have developed positively over the past period after the Chinese President visited Cairo last January, in a trip that was the first of its kind in 12 years. He signed 20 economic agreements worth $15 billion of Chinese investments in the country.

The projects included in Monday’s agreement span the electricity, transport, housing, industry and communications sectors.

The signatories on the Egyptian side were the Minister of Trade and Industry Tarek Kabil and Secretary of State investment Dalia Khorshid; while on the Chinese side, the Minister for the Development and Reform Commission Ning Gizh and the Vice Minister of Commerce Ken Kimnj signed the agreement.

Kabil said in a statement that the projects include industrial investments in the fields of textile industries, manufacturing of electronics, animal feed, flat glass, in addition to the creation of a phosphate complex.

Some of these projects are already under implementation while others are still being studied.

Last March, Tarek Amer, the governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, said in a televised interview that China will put $30 billion of direct investments into Egypt over the next two years.

Khorshid said that Egypt is looking forward to China being among the top ten countries to have investments in Egypt during the coming period, noting that it is currently the 23rd top investor, with a total $ 546 million in investments.