With Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to visit India as the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations, security, defence, cyber security and agriculture is expected to dominate the agenda between the two countries.
The two sides are looking at signing about half-a-dozen pacts on some of these sectors, including IT and culture, and Egypt wants to partner with India on defence and agriculture in a major way. Egypt is interested in procuring defence equipment from India, which includes LCA Tejas, missiles like Akash, DRDO’s Smart Anti-Airfield Weapon, radars. This is being developed as part of defence industry cooperation, and one of the markers was that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had visited Cairo last year when a defence pact was signed. Sisi, a military chief-turned-President, is acutely aware of the strategic challenges in the region, and wants to equip the Egyptian military. In fact, to showcase the defence ties, an Egyptian military contingent participated in the Republic Day parade as well.
As a follow-up to their interest in acquiring Indian indigenous technology, Egypt has also been invited to participate in the Aero-India 2023 at Yelahanka Air Force Station, Bengaluru, next month.
Egypt, too, is reciprocating, as India has been invited for Exercise Bright Star — joint training exercises led by US and Egyptian forces held every two years — in Egypt in September this year.