What Xi’s Cairo visit has delivered so far: Teda expansion, MoUs, and wider China footprint

Xi Jinping’s first state visit to Egypt in a decade has so far delivered a set of working tracks instead of the broader wishlist

Before we get into the details, here’s what has — and has not — changed:

But we have yet to hear of the headline agreements that would settle the bigger questions: Huawei chip or data center agreement

So, what was on the table?

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Xi oversaw the signing of five agreements and MoUs, plus more than 20 further cooperation documents statement

The most concrete industrial piece is at Teda. statement

The 20 cooperation documents fill in the map:

DATA POINT- fDi Markets government puts at over USD 10 bn

A tire export hub on the table

China’s largest tiremaker is circling Sokhna. statement

And there’s a cluster forming behind it. Sailun’s USD 1 bn plant Chaoyang Longmarch’s USD 190 mn factory Zenith’s USD 300 mn tire-components plant

Mansour Group signed an MoU with Tianneng Battery Group statement plans

OPay’s Egypt bank bid

OPay wants to run a digital bank in Egypt. Al Arabiya

It’s not OPay’s first signal. Aman MNT-Halan Sahl Basata Financial Holding Ostoul Securities Brokerage PaySky Onebank QNB Group’s ezbank yomo

Chinese-owned, Nigerian-made: microfinance-bank mobile-money Bloomberg

China backs LRT, again

On the infrastructure side, two financing agreements worth USD 665 mn are set to be signed according to two people familiar with the matter

None of this is new territory: opened in 2022 back in November 2023