By Manal Abdel Fattah
The Chinese Ambassador, Liao Liqiang, confirmed that his country is keen to strengthen practical cooperation between Beijing and Cairo, especially since this year marks the tenth anniversary of the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Egypt.
Regarding growth opportunities for his country, the Chinese ambassador to Egypt said that the Chinese economy withstood external pressures last year, 2023, and achieved continuous recovery and steady progress for high-quality development, and the gross domestic product exceeded 126 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.2%, ranking advanced among the major economies In the world.
Liao Liqiang added that the 5% economic growth target presented in the government work report for 2024 is not only higher than previous IMF and World Bank expectations, but also much higher than the International Monetary Fund’s expectations for growth in the United States and Europe, which sends a positive signal for development.
The ambassador cited the expectations of the International Monetary Fund representative in China, that the Chinese economy will contribute to a third of global economic growth in 2024, as well as the expectations of the British Economist Intelligence Unit that the fundamentals of China’s economy will be more solid in 2024, while the American Center for Strategic and International Studies believes that China has Strong exports of electric car batteries, electronic products and metals, and possesses industries with strong international competitiveness, in addition to the expectations of many international media that China has a huge economy, mature industries, and a broad middle class, and that it is an indispensable market for foreign investors.
During the conference, the Chinese ambassador revealed China’s foreign policy for the new year, explaining that it will implement the new development concept in a comprehensive manner, accelerate the construction of the new growth equation, advance high-quality development, and employ its advantages of strong innovation capacity, broad market, complete infrastructure, and strong chain of economic development. integrated industrial, abundant and high-quality human resources, expand high-level openness, facilitate market access, create a business environment that operates with market rules, laws, and international standards, and share with the world the new opportunities resulting from Chinese-style modernization, stressing that China will continue to be an engine It is important for the growth of the world economy, and injects factors of certainty and positive energy into the unstable global economy.
Regarding innovation opportunities, Liao Liqiang pointed out that the government work report for 2024 “placed work on building a modern industrial system and accelerating the pace of developing qualitative productive power, as the first task of this year’s ten works,” pointing to China’s achievements in the field of scientific innovation, such as manned spaceflight. , quantum information, electronuclear technologies, and the manufacture of large aircraft, and it has come a long way to become an innovative country, as it leads the world in terms of the number of patent applications, and China ranks first in the world for the first time in terms of the number of scientific innovation clusters, and the size of the manufacturing industry ranks first in the world for 14 consecutive years.
Regarding green opportunities, the Chinese ambassador said that his country has worked in recent years to accelerate the green transformation of its development model, and to support reaching the peak of carbon neutrality, thus laying a solid foundation for its green and sustainable development, and providing important support for green, low-carbon global development.
Liao Liqiang stressed that China is working to expand its exports of new energy products and increase direct investment in renewable energy in Egypt and other countries, which directly helps in the green and low-carbon energy transition in these countries.
Regarding opportunities for cooperation, the Chinese ambassador to Egypt said: There is no growth for China without the world, and the growth of the world also needs China, which has become a major trading partner for more than 140 countries and regions, pointing out that last October China announced that it would lift all restrictions imposed on… Foreign investment in the manufacturing sector continues to provide opportunities for global investors in the Chinese manufacturing industry.
Last January, 4,588 new foreign-invested companies were established in China, an increase of 74.4% year on year.
As for practical cooperation between Beijing and Cairo, the Chinese ambassador said that it deepened last year, amid the expansion of China’s openness to the outside world, pointing to the presence of Prime Minister Dr. Mostafa Madbouly at the third “Belt and Road” international cooperation forum in China, where China signed Egypt signed a memorandum of understanding in the field of debt swap in order to implement development projects.
Egypt, as the first country in the Middle East and Africa, issued sustainable international “Panda” bonds on the Chinese financial market, worth 3.5 billion yuan.
The Egyptian satellite 2 was also successfully launched in China, confirming “Chinese-Egyptian cooperation has broader scope and higher quality.”
The ambassador added that this year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of New China, and the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Egypt, stressing: “We will continue concrete efforts to achieve effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth of the economy, enhance the momentum of economic recovery, and share the opportunities resulting from Chinese-style modernization.”
With Egypt and other countries, bringing certain elements and positive energy to a global economy full of uncertainty.”
Regarding China’s diplomacy, Ambassador Liao Liqiang stressed that building a shared community with a future for humanity is the noble goal pursued by the diplomacy of a major country with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and that in light of international turmoil, China always remains a force for peace, stability, and progress, as Liqiang stressed. China has always been committed to self-confidence, self-reliance, and fulfilling its responsibilities as a responsible major country.
