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Reviewing the developments that have recently been witnessed by Egyptian tourism industry and discussing how to increase mutual tourist cooperation between Egypt and India topped the talks between Egyptian Tourism Minister Mr. Zoheir Garranah and his Indian counterpart the Indian ambassador in Egypt Mr. Ramachandar Swaminalhan.
Indian Tourism Minister expressed his deep happiness of being appointed as India 's ambassador in Egypt asserting the excellent bilateral relations between Cairo and New Delhi which have been witnessing a boom since the President Hosni Mubarak's visit to India late last year. India, he added will be the guest of honour at Cairo International Book Fair next year.
Swaminalhan further expressed his deep appreciation to Dr. Nazif's government for its achievements in the past few years, the matter that was echoed by the Egyptian Minister who also stressed that the number of tourists from 2004 to 2008 has doubled as it increased by 113% during that period (6.1 million tourists in 2004 compared to 12.8 million tourists by the end of 2008).
Indian Ambassador hoped the exchange of tourists between the two countries could increase, pointing out that Egypt Air has contributed to the increase of flights between Egypt and India as it organized four direct flights a week between Cairo and Mumbai.
In this regard, the two parties confirmed that tourists from both sides can easily get entry visas for both countries, which does not represent an obstacle to tourists’ influx between them.
Ramachandar Swaminalhan noted that Egypt’s investments in India amounted to 3 billion U.S. dollars and Indian investments in Egypt amounted to nearly one billion dollars is expected to double within a year. He stressed that Indian investors have great confidence in the investment climate in Egypt due to its geographical position in addition to its strong infrastructure.
On the other hand, Egyptian Minister of Tourism
Praised the great economic and technological growth achieved by India.
It is worth mentioning that the number of Indian tourists coming to Egypt reached 88,811 tourists at the end of 2008 achieving thus a 7.7% increase compared to previous year apart from the tourist nights that amounted to 794,752 with a 15.2% rise compared to last year.
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