Egypt: ties with US strategic

Egypt's Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif on Monday underlined the importance of expanding Egypt's strategic ties with the US saying that this would be one of the aims of his planned trip to Washington early next week.

Speaking to chief editors of Egyptian newspapers, he said his visit that would include Washington and New York comes at a very critical phase in the two countries' relations. He said that Egypt's current economic achievements and its economic, social and health reforms would be among the topics to figure high on his trip's agenda.

The agenda will also specifically cover the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) talks with Egypt. Nazif said that Egypt and the US were almost eye to eye as regards most of the terms of the FTA except for those connected with potency rights in the pharmaceutical industry.

He asserted that limited differences over the agreement would not affect the ties of friendship binding the two countries together.

The Premier spoke about the current stability in the money market noting that Egypt's reserves of foreign currency rose to $ 18.4 billion and that Egypt was able to pay all its foreign debt installments.

Nazif said that Egypt's political reform steps were going on at a reasonable pace and that there were already four laws on the People's Assembly, the Shura Council, the practicing of political life and political parties that had been referred to the President for endorsement.

He promised that work on drafting the bill on presidential elections would start after the parliament passes the proposed constitutional amendments into it and after those amendments are put for a public referendum, to be held by the end of May.