Egypt Invited to Participate in Intergovernmental G20 Summit

India has offered Egypt a seat as a guest country in the yearlong Group of Twenty (G20) meetings starting this December, announced the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 24 November.

The official spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid, stated that the invitation reflects “the historical ties between the two countries, leadership, government and people,” while also embodying “Egypt’s status regionally and internationally and its influential role in major international economic issues and files.”

Abu Zeid added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has appointed Ragy el-Etrebi, the assistant minister of foreign affairs for international and regional multilateral economic affairs, as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s personal representative.

In a statement by el-Etrebi, the ambassador stated that “G20 bears great challenges in light of the severe and successive crises facing the global economy since the outbreak of the Corona epidemic and through the repercussions of the war in Ukraine, as the countries of the group alone represent 80 percent of the world’s gross product and 75 percent of the global economy.”

The ambassador also said that Egypt is determined to “actively and effectively” participate in the meetings in order to “enhance joint international action.”

The G20 is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 nations and the European Union (EU) which brings together the world’s major economies, such as China, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, among others. The forum has met annually since 1999.