Egyptian Economic Performance

A. Egyptian Tunisian Joint Higher Committee Meeting:
1. The Egyptian Tunisian joint higher committee meeting was held in Cairo from 30/6-1/7/2007, where both sides signed 9 agreements, protocols and executive programs to boost the cooperation between both countries. Those agreements were: an agreement between Tunisian national company for petroleum distribution and the Egyptian car gas company, an executive program for tourism cooperation, an executive program for industrial cooperation, an executive program for media cooperation, an executive program for youth cooperation and a protocol for cooperation between Egyptian national library and archives and Tunisian national archives.
2. Furthermore, both sides signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation between technical and technological centers, a memorandum of understanding between Tunisian center for promotion of exports and Egyptian center for exports promotion and a memorandum of understanding between Tunisian radio and television and Egyptian Radio and Television Union.
3. Worth mentioning, the joint Egyptian Tunisian chamber meeting was held on the margin of the Egyptian Tunisian joint higher committee meeting, where the director of the Egyptian general union for commercial chambers stated that the government is proposing a law to facilitate the mechanisms to exit the market.

B. Egypt Builds 3 Power Stations In Sudan:
1. The minister of electricity witnessed the signature of a contract to build three power stations in Southern Sudan, which will cost L.E.100 million. This contract is one of a series of contracts that were signed to supply Southern Sudan with electricity. Among these series of contracts was a contract to establish an electricity network, which will cost around L.E 37 million.
2. moreover, this project comes within a series of projects executed through a grant (about L.E.154 million) provided by the Egyptian government to Sudan.
3. Worth mentioning, a contract to establish an Egyptian Sudanese company was signed where its headquarter is in Juba. This company is specialized in planning, executing, operating, maintaining, and managing electricity projects.

C. An Agreement With EU To Improve Technical Education:
1. The minister of trade and industry and the ambassador of EU signed a protocol to improve technical and vocational training as well as upgrading the human resources in four sectors, that are: industrial engineering, building and construction, furniture and wood industry and nutrition.
2. The ministry of trade and industry, the ministry of international cooperation, and ministry of labor and immigration on one side, and EU on the other side will carry out this program.
3. Besides, the ministry of trade and industry assured that improving and reforming technical and vocational training became a necessity due to increasing demand for qualified labor.

D. EU Provides 20 Million Euros To fund Social Fund For Development Projects:
1. On 3 July 2007, the ministry of cooperation, Social fund for development (SFD) and EU signed an agreement to finance the SFD projects, where the EU will provide the SFD 20 million euros.
2. This program aims at supporting social development and reducing poverty rate as well as providing work opportunities and raising standard of living. It also aims at increasing the efficiency of SFD and its offices that are located in very poor areas. Furthermore, this program will be carried out according to basic and social needs, as education, vocational training and health.
3. Worth mentioning, within the framework of the Egyptian European action plan that was adopted during the Egyptian European partnership council meeting in March 2007, the ministry of cooperation signed a memorandum of understanding that reflects the cooperation between both sides (Egypt and the EU) form 2007 till 2010. This memorandum of understanding provides Egypt with 558 million Euros as a grant from the EU to support the Egyptian efforts to carry out the national reform plan in several fields.

E. Increase In Suez Canal Revenues:
1. During the first five months of the current year, the Suez Canal revenues reached $1.8 billion, with an increase of about $306 million compared to last year revenues, where around 8143 ships passed through the canal.
2. The increase in revenues is due to the increase of trade exchange between India and Europe, in addition to the increase of Chinese exports to EU and North America.

F. The Energy Sector:
1. The British BG Co., Malaysian Petronas Co., and Italian Edison Co. decided to invest $ 4 billion over the next 3 years to execute a number of mega projects in upstream activities to produce natural gas from the offshore fields discovered in the Mediterranean. This comes after the success accomplished by these companies during the past six years from the discovery of natural gas in shallow and deep waters in the Mediterranean with investments of $ 3 billion.
2. The new projects initiated include four projects for developing gas fields in the deep water and a project of adding a station for the treatment of the ice formation phenomenon inside the marine pipelines that transfers gas in Idku.
3. On the other hand, Petzed, a fully owned subsidiary of National Petroleum Company (NPC), announced a new commercial oil discovery in South Abou Zeneima. The well tested in Muzhil-1 field, 1900 barrels of oil per day in aggregate from two different layers.Muzhil-1 is a well in the South Abou Zeneima block situated on the Eastern side of the Gulf of Suez. The block covers 151 km2 in area and is surrounded by producing fields such as Rhudeis, October and Tanka.
4. A recent study conducted by an Italian company clarified that, crude oil recovery ratio at the wells of the Gulf of Suez can be raised to exceed 40%, compared to 20% currently, due to the utilization of up-to-date technologies along with enhanced oil recovery methods which in turn opens new horizons to increase the levels of the Egyptian crude oil production over the next period.