Ambassador Chiang Tao, Chargé d’Affairs of the Chinese Embassy in Cairo, recently discussed the potential of an Egypt-China space agreement in his speech at the Space Dream Symposium organised by the Egyptian Chinese University in cooperation between the Egyptian Space Agency and the Chinese Embassy in Cairo.

The symposium, which took place on Monday, 19th September 2022, had a number of space scientists from Egypt and China and several Chinese astronauts in attendance.

Citing Egypt’s immense space sector development and the resulting socio-economic benefits, he pointed out that Egypt is at the forefront of African countries in space technology, and its space sector has witnessed significant progress during the era of President Sisi and President Xi Jinping. Ambassador Chiang added that Egypt would become the first African country to possess an integrated capacity to assemble and test satellites after the completion of the AIT building.

According to the CEO of the Egyptian Space Agency, Dr Sherif Sedky, it’s time for Egypt to get to know the Tiangong space station, a reflection of China’s space technology advancement and maturity. He further remarked, “As the official representative of the Egyptian Space Agency, I would like to express our pride in having a long-term fruitful cooperation with China that began in 2018, and we are looking forward to expanding and deepening our cooperation with China to benefit from their expertise in space and assistance in the development of space technology in Egypt.”

In addition, there are joint efforts between Egypt and China to deepen their space cooperation and make new contributions that will enrich the comprehensive Egyptian-Chinese partnership and serve the interests of the two countries. Thus, China has proposed the establishment of a Chinese-African cooperation centre on remote sensing satellite applications and training African competencies in space technologies in partnership with the Egyptian Space Agency.

Dr Sedky pointed out that cooperation with China also has an academic dimension through jointly-implemented projects between countries and the Egyptian Space Agency. These projects aim to build student design skills for space shuttles and train university students on the basics of satellite technology.