Türkiye's state pipeline operator BOTAŞ and Egypt's EGAS agreed to deepen energy ties by looking at natural gas and liquified natural gas (LNG) trade opportunities, BOTAŞ said in a statement on Thursday following a historic visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Cairo, a first in over a decade.
"Within the scope of the President's official visit to Egypt, a meeting was held between the senior management of national natural gas companies BOTAŞ and EGAS (Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company)," the Turkish company said in a statement on its website.
"During the meeting, it was agreed to further strengthen the relations between BOTAŞ and EGAS. Within this framework, discussions were held on natural gas and LNG trading opportunities, cooperation on natural gas infrastructure and underground storages, (and) sharing of technical information and experience," it added.
President Erdoğan, accompanied by a large ministerial delegation visited Egypt on Wednesday, where he had talks with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
The two nations signed a joint declaration on the restructuring of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council meetings between the two countries, pledging to cooperate in a wide range of areas, including politics, security, trade, and culture.
The declaration, which highlights the deep-rooted, common historical and cultural ties between Türkiye and Egypt, stresses the commitment of Ankara and Cairo to strengthen their strong relations in all fields to serve the common interests of both countries and peoples and to enhance solidarity and cooperation to promote peace, stability and prosperity both in their regions and beyond.
Defense, trade possibilities
In light of the rapprochement, both Erdoğan and el-Sissi outlined their objective to raise the trade volume between the two countries to $15 billion (TL 461.4 billion) as well as around $3 billion worth of Turkish investments in Egypt.
"I believe there is serious potential for cooperation in the field of defense industry. Egypt has significant investments in this field. I think we can strengthen our cooperation through joint projects," Erdoğan noted in a joint news conference with his Egyptian counterpart.
Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Türkiye agreed to provide its increasingly popular drones to Egypt, in a further sign of normal diplomatic relations after years of strained ties.
"Normalization in our relations is important for Egypt to have certain technologies. We have an agreement to provide (Egypt) unmanned air vehicles and other technologies," Fidan said at the time without further elaborating.
Evaluating the trade ties between the two countries, Mustafa Denizer, president of the Türkiye-Egypt Business Council of the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK), told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Thursday that Turkish investments in Egypt employ thousands while also generating significant annual turnover.
Denizer also noted that the trade volume between Türkiye and Egypt began to increase with the free trade agreement inked in 2007 and has reached $10 billion, adding that energy has significant potential in commercial relations and it could be possible to raise this figure further to $15 billion-$20 billion in the next five years.
"The Egyptian industry needs a lot of intermediate goods. It used to supply them from Türkiye, and it still can," he said, while pointing out that the current surplus the North African country obtains from energy "should somehow be directed to Turkish products."
Underscoring that among African countries Türkiye has the largest trade volume with Egypt, Denizer said: "This difference would gradually widen. After all, Egypt is a very large market with a population of 115 million."
Touching upon Turkish investments in the country, which he said provides employment for around 70,000 and indirectly for around 100,000 individuals, Denizer also said they were obtaining an annual turnover of $1.5 billion from these investments.
"An important part of this is exports from Egypt to third countries. In other words, there are successful Turkish investments in Egypt," he noted.
He also highlighted the role of Turkish businesspeople in Egypt's exports in the textile and apparel sector, while he said investments in other sectors include tourism, logistics and retail.