Ukraine initiates talks on preferential trade agreement with Egypt

According to the report, this issue was discussed during a phone call between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry.

"We aim to significantly increase bilateral trade that amounted to more than $2.6 billion last year. To this end, we have offered the Egyptian side a new format for economic cooperation, namely to consider the possibility of concluding a bilateral preferential trade agreement," Kuleba said.

The ministers discussed joint efforts to diversify cooperation in the trade, economic, investment, tourism and humanitarian areas.

At the same time, the sides noted the significant progress made in recent years in the political sphere and discussed concrete next steps for the exchange of visits by the two countries' high-ranking officials.

Kuleba stressed the importance of ensuring the upward dynamics of bilateral relations and invited his Egyptian counterpart to pay an official visit to Ukraine after the improvement of the epidemiological situation.

The foreign ministers spoke separately about the current state of the bilateral legal framework and agreed to promote its expansion.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry added that Egypt is a key economic partner of Ukraine on the African continent. Total trade in goods and services between Ukraine and Egypt in 2019 amounted to $2.631 billion. In the first five months of this year, this figure exceeded $1 billion.

Some 1.49 million Ukrainian tourists visited Egypt in 2019. According to this figure, Ukraine took second place after Germany.

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