Al-Sisi bestows Order of the Nile, Egypt’s highest honor, to visiting India PM Modi

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo on Sunday on a rare visit during which both sides pledged to deepen their strategic partnership.

They agreed to boost investment by India, the world’s most populous nation, in Egypt, which has the Arab world’s largest
population, of 105 million, and which is now in the grips of an economic downturn.

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Modi, in power since 2014, was on his first visit to the north African country and US ally following a four-day trip to the United States where he met President Joe Biden.

Modi and Sisi “signed a joint declaration to elevate relations to a strategic partnership,” which they had first announced in January when Sisi visited New Delhi, a spokesman for the Egyptian leader said.

Al-Sisi and Modi, who came to power in their countries in 2014, have in recent years cultivated a closer relationship. Over the last 16 months, they have resisted pressure from the West to condemn the Russian war in Ukraine. Both Egypt and India have decades-old ties with the Kremlin.

“There is a change in the global geopolitical and geoeconomic atmosphere wherein both countries wish to play a defining role,” India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said during a visit to Cairo in September. “Egypt’s geostrategic location acts as a connecting link between Africa, West Asia, the Mediterranean, and Europe and is also an important country from the Indo-Pacific point of view.”
India and Egypt have pledged to boost bilateral trade by billions of dollars as India is also stepping up investment in Egypt, particularly in renewable energy.

Egypt has suffered a drawn-out economic crisis in which the currency has lost half its value in a year.

The government has in recent months moved to diversify foreign investors, which also include Gulf powers and China.

Sisi bestowed Cairo’s highest honor, the Order of the Nile, on Modi and the two leaders affirmed their “mutual commitment” to strengthen relations.

This would include “increasing high-level visits,” facilitating direct flights between the capitals, and “developing Indian investments in Egypt,” according to the presidency in Cairo.

Al-Sisi welcomed Modi at the presidential palace in Cairo with the Order of the Nile, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement. The leaders signed a declaration elevating Egyptian-Indo ties to a “strategic partnership,” which means the two nations agreed to intensify their cooperation and hold periodic talks, the statement said.

Egypt and India share deep ties that date back to the 1950s, when they played key roles in founding the Non-Aligned Movement, which sought an alternative path at the height of the Cold War.

Following his talks with al-Sisi, Modi visited a historic mosque, Cairo’s Al-Hakim, which was recently renovated with the help of the India-based Dawoodi Bohra community. He also paid tribute to Indian soldiers who died in World War I and are buried in the Heliopolis War Cemetery in Cairo.

“My visit to Egypt was a historic one. It will add renewed vigor to India-Egypt relations and will benefit the people of our nations,” Modi wrote on Twitter before departing to New Delhi.
India is already Egypt’s seventh-largest trading partner, according to data from Cairo’s central bank, with trade reaching $7 billion last year.

The two leaders agreed in January to increase Indian investments in Egypt, which currently stand at over $3.15 billion, including through a potential “dedicated land area for Indian industries in the Suez Canal Economic Zone.”

Those projects include a $12 billion green hydrogen plant to be built by Indian firm ACME.

In 2022, as Russia’s Ukraine invasion drove up global grain pric-es, India banned wheat exports to protect its reserves and rein in inflation, but granted an exception to Egypt, the world’s biggest wheat importer.
Modi also invited the Egyptian leader to attend a summit of the Group of 20 leading rich and developing countries, which India will host in September.

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