Haitham bin Tariq, Sultan of Oman, will visit Cairo on Sunday, leading a high-level delegation, in his first trip to the North African country since he assumed his position in January 2020.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi will meet Bin Tariq to discuss strengthening joint Arab action and various developments on the regional and international arenas.
The Omani delegation includes Shihab bin Tariq Al Said, Deputy Prime Minister for Defence Affairs; Khalid bin Hilal Al Busaidi, Minister of the Diwan of Royal Court; Sultan bin Mohamed Al Nuamani, Minister of the Royal Office; Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, Minister of Foreign Affairs; and Sultan bin Salem Al-Habsi, Minister of Finance.
What’s at stake?
Last February, Daily News reported that the Oman Investment Authority, the sovereign fund of the Sultanate of Oman, has considered investing in Egypt, especially in renewable energy projects.
Egypt seeks to consolidate economic relations with Oman to increase FDI in Egypt, urging the Egyptian government to bridge the financing gap, which amounts to about $17 billion.
Sources told Daily News that the Oman Investment Authority is considering pumping investments amounting to about $5 billion in Egypt, and the visit is a prelude to those investments.
Egypt seeks to bridge the financing gap by consolidating economic relations with brotherly countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait which have already pumped huge investments, while it is currently working on consolidating economic relations with Oman and Qatar.
Egypt has previously agreed with the International Monetary Fund to obtain a loan of about$ 3bn, and has already succeeded in disbursing the first tranche of the loan.
In conjunction with other steps to solve the economic crisis the country is going through, including the government offerings program, which aims to sell about 32 government companies to increase the role of the private sector in the Egyptian economy, in addition to providing dollar liquidity in light of the foreign exchange crisis in Egypt.
For a year, Egypt has been suffering from a hard currency shortage, and it has been taking a number of steps to solve the problem, mainly attracting foreign direct investment by selling some state-owned assets and issuing dollar bonds and sukuk.
