Symposium in Cairo marks 66th anniversary of China-Egypt diplomatic ties

CAIRO, May 30 (Xinhua) -- The Egypt-China Friendship Association held a symposium on Monday in Cairo to celebrate the 66th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Egypt.

The event was attended by Egyptian and Chinese diplomats, academics, professors and experts, including the association's chairman Ahmed Waly and Chinese Ambassador to Egypt Liao Liqiang.

During the symposium, Waly hailed the growing cultural and economic cooperation between China and Egypt.

For his part, Liao commended the symposium and its organizers for their positive role in boosting China-Egypt relations.

"Egypt and China have maintained high-level, intensified exchanges," the Chinese ambassador told Xinhua, highlighting the frequent exchanges between the two countries' leaderships in recent years.

The growing economic and trade relations between Egypt and China under the framework of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have strengthened a win-win partnership between the two countries, noted Liao.

"The initiative has provided Chinese solutions to global development dilemmas ... (as) Egypt and more than 100 other countries and several international organizations, including the United Nations, have had a positive attitude toward the initiative," he said.

The volume of trade exchange between China and Egypt reached about 20 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, marking an annual increase of 37.3 percent, "which embodies the high-level economic integration between the two countries," according to the Chinese ambassador.

Participants of the symposium underlined the need to promote the Chinese vision of a community with a shared future for mankind, especially in the light of the ongoing crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Ali el-Hefny, Egypt's former ambassador to China and former deputy foreign minister, said China has always called on all countries to work together for a shared future for mankind, "which has received a positive response from all parties, whether states, regions or continents."

Hefny, also vice chairman of the friendship association, said the BRI was a practical initiative that "has corrected the phenomenon of globalization and treated a lot of its defects."

Egypt established diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China on May 30, 1956.