Egypt and China have moved to widen their economic and diplomatic ties, with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi hosting President Xi Jinping for a full day of talks in Cairo. Xi’s visit is his first to Egypt in a decade, and officials on both sides are tying the trip to a fresh chapter in the Egypt-China partnership.
The two leaders met at the Ittihadiya Palace on Wednesday, where Xi received a ceremonial welcome. Their conversation, described by Egyptian officials as expanded talks, closed with a joint statement framing the Egypt-China partnership as comprehensive and strategic.
One of the clearest outcomes was economic. Sisi’s office confirmed plans to launch a third phase of the China-Egypt TEDA industrial zone inside the Suez Canal Economic Zone. The existing zone already hosts around two hundred companies, Al-Monitor reported. The new phase is expected to bring investment into renewable energy, automotive manufacturing, textiles and chemical fibres, extending an Egypt-China partnership that has grown steadily since the two countries elevated ties in 2014.
Sisi said Egypt and China share a clear political will to lift cooperation further, particularly through localising industry and transferring technology.
Trade settlement featured too. The two governments pushed to settle more trade and investment in local currencies, building on an arrangement their central banks reached when Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited Cairo in July 2025. Widening local currency use in trade is a quiet, technical shift, but it steadily cuts how many dollars Egypt needs to source for dealings with Beijing, a real consideration given how lopsided the trade balance between the two countries has become.
The Gaza ceasefire, humanitarian access, the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, the two state solution and the US Iran conflict were also raised during the talks.
Agreements and memoranda of understanding were signed once the formal discussions ended, though full details were still emerging on Wednesday evening. Officials in Cairo described the signings as proof that the Egypt-China partnership is moving from statements into paperwork.
The visit falls in a year marking seventy years since Egypt and China first established diplomatic relations, The New Arab noted. Cairo was the first Arab and African country to recognise the People’s Republic of China, a history both governments have leaned on to describe the Egypt-China partnership as long standing rather than purely transactional.
Xi’s last visit to Egypt came in January 2016 and produced a string of agreements worth around fifteen billion US dollars. This time round, Egypt already estimates existing Chinese investment in the country at close to ten billion dollars, even as China keeps a wide trade surplus built on exports that far outstrip what Egypt sends the other way.
For Cairo, the Egypt-China partnership sits alongside long standing ties with Washington and a peace treaty with Israel. Egyptian officials tend to describe this balancing act as widening options rather than choosing sides, an approach that has shaped much of Sisi’s foreign policy since 2014.
