As President Obama arrives in Egypt today to deliver a much-anticipated speech on U.S.-Middle East relations, businesspeople on both sides of the world are hoping his trip will pave the way for increased commerce.
Egypt is striving to become a trade hub in the Middle East on the strength of its favorable geographic location, purchasing power and consumer culture. The United States is stuck in the worst recession since the 1930s -- worsened by sluggish consumer spending.
Put the two together and benefits will flow, several trade experts said.
"Egypt can offer U.S. companies many advantages, including a large domestic market of almost 80 million consumers" and Egypt's many bilateral trade agreements with "almost all major world markets," said Rachid Mohamed Rachid, Egyptian minister of trade and industry, in a interview from his Cairo office.
In May, the U.S. and Egypt announced that they would bolster trade and investment ties. Both U.S. and Egyptian trade experts said that fostering bilateral trade and business relations could help stabilize political relations.
"We as an organization believe that trade and business relations are an underpinning relationship with any society," said Chuck Dittrich, vice president of regional trade initiatives with the National Foreign Trade Council in Washington.
Last month, Rachid visited the U.S. and, along with U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, issued a joint statement that said deepening trade ties should mesh well with the strong cooperation between Washington and Cairo on political and security matters.
Ahmed Chebbani, chairman of the Michigan-based American Arab Chamber of Commerce, agreed: "Prosperity and peace go hand in hand. If you don't have one, you can't have the other."
"People, after all, have the same concerns wherever they come from," Chebbani said. "They need housing, healthcare, food. . . . And when you have these things, you have political stability."
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, after meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit in preparation for Obama's trip, promised strong U.S. backing to promote economic opportunity in Egypt. "I want to stress economic opportunity because out of economic opportunity comes confidence, comes a recognition that people can chart their own future," she said.
Egypt is the 36th-largest export market for U.S. goods, totaling $6 billion in 2008, up from $5.3 billion in 2007. U.S. imports from Egypt were down 0.3% last year to $2.4 billion.
