Strengthening Egypt-UK economic ties

Strengthening Egypt-UK economic ties

On 5 December last year, British Ambassador to Egypt Sir Geoffrey Adams signed an association agreement with Egypt's Assistant Foreign Minister for Europe Badr Abdel-Ati to strengthen political and trade ties between the two countries.

The agreement will help British and Egyptian businesses and consumers to benefit from continued preferential access to their respective markets in the wake of the UK's exit from the European Union.

It was ratified by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi on 15 December and is now being fully applied by both countries.

An earlier EU-Egypt agreement establishing a free-trade area, liberalising two-way trade in industrial products, and progressively liberalising two-way trade in agriculture, agri-food, and fisheries was signed between Egypt and the EU in 2001 and entered into force in 2004.

It contained provisions on quotas, the movement of capital, competition, and intellectual property. Egypt is also part of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership between the EU and a number of other Mediterranean countries that aims to create a Euro-Mediterranean free-trade area (Euromed FTA).

The new UK-Egypt agreement largely replicates the existing EU-Egypt agreement, including by establishing institutional arrangements between the UK and Egypt based on existing ones such as the Association Council that allow for the ongoing