Arvydas Daunoravičius, Lithuania’s ambassador to Egypt, said that a group of Egyptian businesspersons are discussing investing in his country, adding, “they are quite known here, and they are aiming to establish factories in Lithuania.”
The ambassador told Daily News Egypt that he will not be able to reveal names of Egyptian businesspersons. “Let us wait and see. However, they will invest in Lithuania’s free zones and use the country as a distribution point to the entire region,” he said.
The average bilateral trade exchange is about €160m, said the ambassador, adding that his country focuses on building more active political relations with Egypt in the current period.
The ambassador added that last year was a productive one, as it witnessed some bilateral political activities, including the first political consultations between the foreign affairs ministries of both countries.
“My vice minister of foreign affairs visited Egypt and met with Egypt’s assistant foreign minister for European affairs last year,” the ambassador added, noting that Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry visited Lithuania, which offers promising opportunities for future cooperation.
On 22 August, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius met with Shoukry, who visited Lithuania for the first time. During the visit, the officials discussed the possibility of intensified bilateral cooperation and exchanged opinions on the general political and security situation in the Middle East, according to a previous press statement by the embassy.
During the visit to Lithuania, Shoukry also met with Lithuania’s Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis, added the statement.
The ambassador expected a visit to Egypt by Linkevičius this year, adding, “we are working on the visit with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and we hope it will take place by the end of 2018, as the schedule of the Egyptian minister is so tense.”
The ambassador noted that his country is first paying attention to the political relations, and then it will focus more on the economic areas, adding, “we are starting from the political side, as we should start building from the bottom; we cannot start from the top.”
Lithuania and Egypt established diplomatic relations in 1992. The only embassy of Lithuania in the Middle East that has been operating since 2001 is in Cairo. Daunoravičius was appointed as Lithuania’s ambassador to the Arab Republic of Egypt in year 2016, according to the website of Lithuania’s embassy.
