Partnership for Future

In the second decade of February 2020, President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko paid an official visit to Egypt. The Belarusian delegation included Minister of the Belarusian State Authority for Military Industry (SAMI) Roman Golovchenko.

The President’s mentioned official visit to Egypt is the third in the history of Belarusian-Egyptian relations. It reaffirmed the strategic interest in cooperation and the firm intention to maximise the potential.

The Belarusian leader held talks in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The parties focused on trade and economic relations and the development of industrial cooperation.

The Egyptian direction occupies an increasingly significant place in the foreign policy of Belarus. Our country does its best for enhancing cooperation with Egypt and considers this state as the most important partner in the Middle East and the African continent.

“We prioritise promotion of high-tech products in Egypt to ensure the establishment of joint ventures. This approach has already shown its effectiveness,” the Belarusian President emphasised.

The head of state also considers that cooperation in the field of defenсe and information technology, including modern public security systems, is promising.

Noting the intensification of economic cooperation, the two countries emphasise the participation of Belarus in the implementation of major infrastructure and high-tech projects. It was stated that, thanks to Cairo, Minsk will seek to enter the markets of North Africa and the Middle East, as well as of neighbouring regions.

Alexander Lukashenko is confident that the countries’ joint efforts will be able to bring cooperation to a whole new level.

During the visit, the presidents also visited the exhibition of scientific and technological developments ‘Belarus-Egypt: partnership for the future’. Military-technical products and high-tech developments of Belarusian scientific and practical centres were presented in the central hall of the multifunctional complex Al Masah Capital. In total, 37 Belarusian enterprises took part in this exhibition. More than 170 scientific, technical and innovative products of organisations and institutions of Belarus were exhibited. Developed industry is one of the advantages of the Belarusian economy, and the country is ready to share its own industrial technologies with Egyptian partners.

In the new administrative capital of Egypt the products were unveiled by SAMI companies, such as SFTUE Belspetsvneshtechnika, KB Radar JSC – Managing Company of Radar Systems Holding, Display Design Office JSC, OKB TSP SPLLC, BelOMO Holding, Sinesis LLC. They displayed their own developments and the latest defence technologies, as well as the results of projects in the field of scientific, technical and innovative activities.

There were presented IT products (the integrated border security system and the KIPOD cloud-based intelligent video surveillance platform), prototype models of weapons (the pride of the Belarusian defence companies is the Polonez MLRS with a range of up to 300 km and the new Buk-MB2(3)K medium-range surface-to-air missile system), automated weapons (the ADUNOK combat module and Legion-B artillery fire control system), highly mobile radar systems for air target acquisition and effective equipment to counter various types of unmanned aerial systems that can be quickly deployed to cover any military or civilian target, such as the export-oriented three-dimensional radar Vostok-3D and the electronic warfare station Groza-S; mobile vehicles — a universal combat platform of the MRAP class, equipment, which raise the possibility of deep modernisation of air defence systems — the Buk-M1 SAM system to the level of the Buk-MB, as well as full-scale models of up-to-date sight systems and surveillance equipment.

The two heads of state familiarised themselves with Belarusian developments in the military-industrial, medical, and engineering industries and discussed specific directions for the development of cooperation.

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as befits a military man (in 2014 he was awarded the highest military rank of Field Marshal), began with the part of the exposition where the developments of the SAMI companies were presented. He carefully examined the the Polonez MLRS, the Buk-MB SAM system, and the ADUNOK combat module. The Egyptian side was also interested in the development of the Sinesis IT company — the KIPOD cloud-based intelligent video surveillance platform. This product is the software platform of the country’s public safety monitoring system. The platform allows you to search for people and vehicles in real time, recognise faces and licence plate numbers, identify abandoned objects and crowds, traffic violations.

Other senior officials of Belarus and Egypt also visited the exhibition.

Simultaneously, representatives of business circles of the two countries discussed new joint projects at the first meeting of the Belarusian-Egyptian business cooperation council in the format of a business forum at Al Masa Capital. More than 30 Belarusian and about 120 Egyptian companies participated in the negotiations.

The forum participants considered issues of bilateral trade and economic cooperation, export and import of goods and services, prospects for expanding business contacts, creating joint ventures. Following the forum, 13 contracts were signed for a total amount of about 44 million Belarusian rubles.

Within the framework of the visit, SAMI Minister Roman Golovchenko held negotiations with Minister of Military Production of Egypt Mohamed Al-Assar, commander of the Egyptian Air Force, Lt. Gen. Mohammed Abbas Helmy Hashem, chairman of the holding of the Arab Organisation for Industrialisation, Lt. Gen. Abdelmonem Eltarras. During the talks, they discussed a wide range of issues of bilateral military-technical cooperation.