Rasheed: 33% increase in exports to Arab states

Egypt's Foreign Trade and Industry Ministry Rashid Mohamed Rashid said his ministry has been adopting a trend of promoting and intensifying the Egyptian trade ties with the Arab region at all economic, trade and technical levels.

Rasheed said statistics revealed that Egyptian exports to Arab states remarkably improved as did the position of trade balance with Arab states, nothing that exports increased during the fist half of 2004 by 33% as compared to the same period last year. Such figures support the government's trend toward more inter-Arab relations particularly with the full implementation of Arab Facilitation Agreement which was put into effect early this month.

The minister said that these figures are not up to the desired level, noting that Arab imports from world countries were estimated at US$ 149.4 billion of which only US$ 13.1 billion representing 8.78 percent.

Rasheed put emphasis on the importance of activating the role of unions, chambers of commerce and businessmen associations in holding permanent exhibitions and allocating an Arab bank to finance inter-Arab trade activities.