Chinese company starts work rehabbing Egypt’s roads

A delegation from the China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation (CATIC) arrived in Egypt Monday ahead of a development project to reconstruct and expand a significant swathe of Egypt’s roads, Transportation Minister Hany Dahy announced.

The delegation will inspect infrastructure in the Marsa Matrouh, Siwa and Mostorod areas before they commence work on 24,000 km of Egypt’s roads.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi signed the contract with the company during his visit to China in December, reported the state-owned news site Ahram Gate.

Last month’s visit was fruitful, resulting in 25 agreements between the two countries, according to media reports.

CATIC is a state-owned company founded in 1979 with an astonishingly wide reach into a host of sectors, including trade, industry, commerce, finance, real estate, hotel and real estate management, public tendering and bidding, machinery procurement, civil construction, logistics, investment, leasing and e-business.

To date, the company has contracted international construction projects across Asia, Africa and Middle East.

In addition to developing Egypt’s road network, Sisi was also exhorting China to invest in the Suez Canal development, the president said in a press conference there.

Trade between Egypt and China was worth around US$10 billion in 2013, a figure officials expect to exceed $11 billion in 2014. However, the balance of trade is overwhelmingly in China’s favor. Egypt’s exports to China have historically made up only about 10 percent of the total trade volume.