Morsi visits Beijing for 3-day state visit and then to Tehran – first by an Egyptian president in last ten years.
Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s newly elected chairman, will come in China on Tuesday for the first leg of a high-profile foreign trip that will also take him to Tehran.
Morsi will pass 3 days in Beijing assembling with officials, including his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, for talks centered mostly on business and investment. He brings with him a commission of 7 ministers and several dozen Egyptian businessmen.
Morsi will sign a number of development contracts while in China, in accordance with a report in the state-run Al Ahram. They include plans for a new power plant, a water desalination plant, and dozens of grain silos and bakeries.
His spokesman, Yasser Ali, told China’s official Xinhua news agency that the trip “has a political aspect, including finding a solution to the Syrian crisis, and an economic aspect, including increasing the Chinese investments in Egypt”.
Trade between the two countries has increased exponentially over the last few years, and now totals nearly $9bn, most of it Egyptian imports from China.
