CAIRO, Feb 18 (MENA) - Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli and his Croatian counterpart Andrej Plenković, currently visiting here, witnessed on Tuesday the inking of a memorandum of understanding on cooperation between Egypt's Alexandria Port Authority and Croatia's Port of Rijeka Authority.

The deal will enhance bilateral collaboration in the fields of maritime transport and logistics as well as developing infrastructure, and exchanging technological expertise.

This will also contribute to boosting trade exchange between the two sides.

Madbouli stressed that the memo is meant to realize a quantum leap in the Egyptian-Croatian cooperation in the maritime transport domain in addition to opening new vistas of economic and regional cooperation in line with Egypt Vision 2030.

This will magnify the role played by ports as strategic commercial gateways, especially as Alexandria is the main Egyptian maritime gateway on the Mediterranean Sea, he said, noting that about 60 percent of Egypt's exports and imports are handled at Alexandria port.

Croatia's Rijeka port is also considered Croatia's gateway to the markets of central and eastern Europe, he said.

He noted that this cooperation will foster the linkage between south Europe and Africa via Alexandria and Rijeka ports.

Board Chairman of the Alexandria Port Authority Ahmed Hawwash expected this partnership to lure European and African investments and promote economic integration between both countries.

He added that serious measures will be taken to put the memo into effect. (MENA)
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