Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.24
By Seba Aghayeva - Trend:
The largest Egyptian region - South Sinai - is considering the possibility of establishing direct cooperation with Azerbaijan in the spheres of tourism and agriculture.
Governor of South Sinai Khaled Fouda plans to discuss the prospects for cooperation with Azerbaijan in Baku in the second half of March, Azerbaijani ambassador to Egypt Shahin Abdullayev told Trend on Feb.24.
Together with the governor, representatives of large Egyptian companies will also visit Baku and meet their Azerbaijani colleagues and discuss the prospects for business relations.
Egypt's South Sinai province is ready to receive Azerbaijani investors and create conditions for them for the mutually beneficial cooperation, he said.
Aside from tourism and agriculture, the sports, youth policy are also considered as the promising areas of cooperation, according to Fouda.
"We are open for cooperation and expect interesting business proposals from the Azerbaijani side," the governor earlier told reporters in Sharm el-Sheikh.
He said tourism is the priority area of the future cooperation, adding that this sphere is well developed and sea, religious and other types of tourism and popular there.
The Sinai Peninsula, in particular, Sharm el-Sheikh, which is one of the world's tourism centers, is ready to receive Azerbaijani tourists and to this end, it is planned to open a charter flight that can be regular in the future, according to the governor.
Currently, Azerbaijani tourists fly to Sharm el-Sheikh through Tbilisi with Tbilisi-Sharm el-Sheikh-Tbilisi charter flight, which causes certain problems for them.
Opening of a direct flight from Baku to Sharm el-Sheikh can eliminate these problems, said the governor, adding that he plans to discuss this issue in Baku.
Opening of this flight was initiated by Egyptian EgAz tours company which will be receiving Azerbaijani tourists in Sharm el-Sheikh. The company is ready to offer the Azerbaijani tourists 15 best hotels in the peninsula.
This initiative was supported by the tourism ministries of Azerbaijan and Egypt. The plans on opening the flight and rendering services to the tourists from Azerbaijan was discussed during the meeting of the representatives of the two countries' tourism ministries during the visit of delegation of Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture and Tourism to Egypt in August 2014.
The governor said that the opening of a flight between Sharm el-Sheikh and Baku can also allow to expand the economic relations between the peninsula and Azerbaijan.
The volume of trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Egypt exceeded $94 million as of 2014, according to Azerbaijani State Statistical Committee.
Edited by SI
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