A Growing Bilateral Partnership between Egypt and Bosnia and Herzegovina

Article by H.E. Mr. Walid Haggag, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt

Egypt and Bosnia and Herzegovina share a longstanding, important and growing bilateral partnership. This relationship is indeed exemplary and strives to further advance the mutual goals and interests of both countries and their peoples. It is strongly underpinned by a long history of friendship and cooperation, mutual respect, and common perspectives related to global issues and multilateral cooperation, in addition to the legacy of the strategic partnership that flourished between Egypt and the former Yugoslavia.  

It is also important to recall that Egypt has, since the very independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, been a traditional partner and supporter of BiH, offering it our steadfast solidarity, assisting in its recovery and rehabilitation since the mid-1990s, and continuing to this day to provide its expertise and technical support in advancing BiH’s capacity building and institutional effectiveness.  

Egypt remains fully committed to expanding its relationship and multi-dimensional cooperation with Bosnia and Herzegovina at all levels and in all areas of mutual interest. Our diplomatic relations are exceptionally strong and we constantly strive to pursue our coordination with BiH vis-à-vis all issues of bilateral, regional and international common importance.

These relations were significantly augmented during the official visit of the then Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr. Denis Bećirović, to Cairo in April last year, and we hope to pursue the momentum generated by this historic visit through ongoing and planned high level exchanges between our two countries in the near future.

This coordination was evident during the recent bilateral meeting between our two foreign ministers, which was held on the margins of the Ministerial Meeting of the Union for the Mediterranean in Barcelona last month. And we are actually preparing and looking forward to welcoming Minister Elmedin Konaković in Cairo for an official visit early next year to further advance our bilateral relationship, during which our two sides will also conclude two important agreements to further strengthen the institutional cooperation and coordination between our two ministries of Foreign Affairs.  

There are also multiple efforts currently underway to advance our relationship and cooperation in a number of other significant fields. Tourism exchanges between Egypt and Bosnia and Herzegovina are growing significantly. Our cultural cooperation is already quite significant and strong. We have an important growing partnership between our two countries in the field of defense and security cooperation. And we are seeking to grow our economic and trade relations, which remain quite modest but offer multiple opportunities and significant potential for both sides. Egypt is also situating itself to meet the needs of the BiH economy and labor market, through the provision of skilled Egyptian workers for companies and employers throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.

When it comes to tourism, it is important to note that Egypt has become an important holiday destination for tens of thousands of BiH tourists who visit it every year, especially to Hurghada and the other coastal resorts along the Red Sea. We are also aiming to attract even more BiH tourists to visit and experience other tourist destinations within Egypt, including Cairo, Alexandria and the historical sites in Luxor and Aswan. And we are confident that the number of tourist arrivals, from BiH and elsewhere, will grow significantly in the coming months and years after the official global opening last November of the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is the largest museum of its kind in the world dedicated to a single civilization.

Our growing relations in this sector were further advanced during the visit of the Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Mr. Sherif Fathi, to Sarajevo last August. The Minister held a number of important official meetings during his visit, including with Mr. Staša Košarac, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, with whom he signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in the Field of Tourism between the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Council of Ministers of BiH.

The Minister also had the opportunity to meet with the representatives of the major travel agents, tour operators, hotel associations, airports, and media in BiH with a view to further promoting tourism to Egypt and also supporting the flow of Egyptian tourists to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Minister’s visit also coincided with the inauguration of the first direct charter flights between Cairo and Sarajevo, which we hope will pave the way for the establishment, in the near future, of direct regular flights between our two capital cities.

In another area of significant importance, the bilateral partnership between Egypt and BiH was further advanced in the field of military and defense cooperation when the Minister of Defense of BiH, Mr. Zukan Helez, accompanied by a high level delegation and representatives from the defense industry of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was welcomed in Cairo on an official visit last September, which was the first of its kind since the establishment ofdiplomatic relations between our two countries. Minister Helez held a number of important meetings with the Egyptian Minister of Defense and Military Production and other high ranking Egyptian military officials, and had the opportunity to visit a number of Egyptian military production and procurement facilities, as well as the premises of the Egyptian Military Academy.

This visit was shortly followed by an important visit by a high level Egyptian military delegation to Sarajevo, during which they pursued these avenues of cooperation with the Ministry of Defense of BiH and the main companies engaged in the defense industry. Egypt was further pleased to welcome the Chief of the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces of BiH, Lieutenant General Gojko Knežević, and the Federal Minister of Energy, Mining and Industry, Mr. Vedran Lakić, who both visited Cairo in early December to attend the fourth edition of the Egyptian Defense Exhibition (EDEX25), which also saw the participation of almost all companies from the defense industry of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  

This growing cooperation will be further augmented, and indeed crowned, by the impending conclusion of an Agreement of Cooperation in the field of Defense between the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Council of Ministers of BiH, which we expect will provide an institutional framework to pursue and significantly elevate our cooperation in the area of exchanging expertise, joint activities and coordination, and the provision of capacity-building programs for the armed forces of BiH. And Egypt is also in the process of designating an accredited military attaché to BiH to strengthen the institutional communication and coordination between our two sides.

We also have a similar longstanding history of cooperation between our two countries in the security sector, and Egypt has been privileged, over the course of the past three decades, to have cumulatively hosted hundreds of BiH police officers and officials in dedicated capacity-building and training programs organized by our relevant security and police agencies. And we remain committed to providing this support to BiH and offering its police officers our expertise and lessons learned, via these specialized programs which are organized by the Egyptian Agency of Partnership for Development (EAPD), and are conducted by the Egyptian Peacekeeping Operations Training Center (EPOTC).  

In the area of social and cultural cooperation, Egypt was pleased to welcome the Minister of Civil Affairs of BiH, Ms. Dubravka Bošnjak, who visited Cairo last month to participate in the Global Congress on Population, Health and Human Development. She held an important bilateral meeting with the Egyptian Minister of Health and Population during which both sides discussed ways and means of advancing our cooperation in the field of health and medical services. Minister Bošnjak also met with the Egyptian Minister of Youth and Sports, where they both signed a Memorandum of Understanding in the field of Youth between the government of Egypt and the Council of Ministers of BiH.

And we look forward to continuing to actively promote our cultural relations and people-to-people exchanges with BiH to further solidify what we hope will be an enduring partnership between our two countries. We are especially hopeful that we will be able to organize the long-awaited visit of the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb, to Sarajevo during the next year, which will have historic significance and represent the first visit of its kind at this level to BiH.  

We are also seeking to strengthen the economic relationship and trade exchanges between Egypt and Bosnia and Herzegovina. While the scale of our commercial and trade exchanges remains modest and is in no way commensurate with the nature of our overall bilateral partnership, we firmly believe that there are multiple opportunities to expand and also diversify the economic relations between our two countries. This includes the promotion of bilateral trade, encouraging key Egyptian corporations to seek business opportunities in BiH, and promoting investment opportunities in Egypt for BIH companies seeking to expand their operations abroad. We are also working towards establishing a dedicated Egypt-BiH Business Council, and the conclusion of a formal framework of cooperation between the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce and the Foreign Trade Chamber of BiH.

At the same time, the government of Egypt, through the Egyptian Ministry of Labor and our embassy here in Sarajevo, has emerged as an important partner in meeting the growing needs of BiH for skilled foreign labor. We are currently already engaged with a number of companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina who are in the process of recruiting hundreds of skilled Egyptian workers, and we stand ready to further facilitate the provision of our fully trained, skilled, specialized, and officially recruited labor at the request of the private sector in BiH.

Egypt and Bosnia and Herzegovina are also seeking to formalize this cooperation between our two governments, with a view towards institutionally exchanging information and expertise and facilitating the overall process of labor mobility between both sides. We were pleased, in this connection, to organize an official visit for and receive the Director of the Agency of Labor and Employment of BiH, Mr. Ivan Barbalić, in Cairo earlier this month, where he and his accompanying delegation met with the Egyptian Minister of Labor, and the two sides signed a Protocol of Cooperation to structure and elevate this growing cooperation. And we look forward to organizing a reciprocal visit for our Minister of Labor to Sarajevo later next year to continue these discussions and further pursue this important avenue of cooperation in our bilateral relations.

And last but not least, and as I had referred to earlier, Egypt and Bosnia and Herzegovina both share a common commitment to promote and consolidate international peace and security, and advance the cause of global solidarity and multilateral cooperation. We are equally appreciative of BiH’s support for Egypt’s leading role in securing peace and stability throughout the Middle East, and in particular in Gaza, and look forward to pursuing our political coordination and diplomatic cooperation on all issues of regional and international importance to both our sides.