Israeli exports to Egypt are expected to grow by $50 million in the first year.
Minister of Industry Trade and Labor Ehud Olmert will sign a Qualified Industrial Zone (QIZ) agreement with the US and Egypt in Cairo next week. Olmert will go to Cairo at the head of a delegation of Israeli industrialists.
While in the US last week, Olmert concluded understandings on the QIZ agreement with US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick. Zoellick and Egypt's Minister of Foreign Trade and Industry Mohamed Rashid Rashid subsequently reached a QIZ agreement on Friday.
Olmert said the QIZ negotiations with Egypt's former Minister of Foreign Trade and Industry and current Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros-Ghali had taken a long time, and that the US had been a party to the negotiations throughout.
Since the outbreak of the intifada in September 2000, Israeli trade with Egypt has fallen from $60 million a year to $25 million.
The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor foreign trade administration predicts that Israeli export to Egypt will grow by $50 million in the first year after the QIZ agreement comes into effect.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on December 5, 2004