CAIRO, April 9 (KUNA) -- Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and his Italian counterpart Romano Prodi underlined here Wednesday the importance of bilateral political and economic relations.
They were addressing the Egyptian-Italian Economic Forum, which kicked off here earlier in the day.
They called for more cooperation in the economic, trade and investment fields, pointing to similar views between Egypt and Italy over diverse regional and international issues.
Prodi hailed bilateral ties as an example for all Mediterranean countries to follow, saying that both countries attached much attention to multilateral dialogue.
He praised as fruitful his meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, during which they agreed on maintaining bilateral economic and political cooperation.
Accompanied by a large business delegation representing major Italian companies, Prodi added that the coming Italian government would set a date for a planned Italian-Egyptian summit that was earlier put on the back burner.
A study is now underway to set up an Italian technology university in Egypt, which is expected to be beneficial to businessmen and investors from both countries, he said.
Representatives from 160 Italian companies and 400 Egyptian businesses are poised to hold bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the just-opened economic forum.
For his part, the Egyptian prime minister predicted that Egyptian-Italian relations would see a "major quantum leap" in various cooperative domains in light of Prodi's ongoing visit.
In this context, he expounded on his government's efforts to push forward the wheel of Egyptian economy over the last three years, including investment stimulation, seven percent growth rate and rising foreign investment in Egypt.
Egypt offers many investment stimuli in energy and transport, and is a logistic basis for African, Mid-Eastern and East Asian markets, he said.
Nazif urged Italian companies to invest in Egypt's infrastructure, roads, transport, railways, bridges, air and sea ports as well as energy exploration and export.
Earlier in the day, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano told Mubrak by phone that the Italian side was viewing Italian-Egyptian ties as prioritized cooperative relations, regardless of the results of the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Rome.
Copyright Kuwait News Agency 2008.
