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Port Said Becomes Gateway for Sino-Egyptian Maritime Cooperation
The Chinese ship "Empress Phoenix" arrived Port Said on Monday afternoon after the signing in the previous day of a Sino-Egyptian maritime cooperation agreement allowing Chinese container ships to directly load and unload cargo at Egypt's Mediterranean port of Said.
The signing of the agreement and the coming of the Chinese container ship indicated that the maritime transportation cooperation between the two countries has entered a new phase, which will certainly boost bilateral cooperation in other fields, said Mustafa Kamel, the governor of Port Said, who addressed the welcoming ceremony at the pier.
China and Egypt signed an agreement in Cairo on Sunday, which made Port Said a distribution center for Chinese containers in the Middle East. Egyptian Transportation Minister Ibrahim el-Demiri and Public Business Sector Minister Mokhtar Khatab attended the signing ceremony.
Khatab praised the agreement as one of the most important steps to promote transit trade and attract international maritime lines. The captain of the "Empress Phoenix" told Xinhua on Monday at Port Said that before the signing of the agreement, Chinese container ships had to load and unload cargo for Egypt at the Israeli port of Haifa.
"Now, things have changed," he said, adding that there exists great potential for further cooperation between China and Egypt. "My ship unloaded 369 containers and take up 266 containers today at Port Said," he said, adding that the maximum loading capacity of his ship is 3500 containers.
From now on, there will be at least one container ship from his company, the Chinese Ocean Shipping Company, arriving at Port Said every week, he disclosed.
The Consul General of China Liu Rucai told Xinhua that during the meeting between Chinese President Jiang Zemin and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak in Alexandria, Egypt last month, both leaders called for closer economic cooperation between the two countries.
"Now, we have made one step forward," he noted.
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