Cont’dfrompg.20

They are by the beautiful Red Sea coast.

The south of Egypt is famous for ancient pharaonic temples. You have Luxor (which the Greeks called Thebes), a pharaonic city where you find many temples and statues of pharaohs. So there’s so much for tourists to enjoy.

Egyptian people are very kind people. Nigerians will like Egyptian hospitality.

Arethereanyculturalsimilarities betweenbothcountries? Nigeria and Egypt are very similar countries. Both of them are important hubs within Africa. Both also have significantly large populations. They are also very religious countries, with both Muslims and Christians in abundant numbers.

I don’t find it strange that I’m here, I feel like I’m in my country, because we have similarities in culture. And I hope that EgyptAir will strengthen the relationship between Egypt and Nigeria because there are many aspects of relationship between Egypt and Nigeria and we can help each other.

Nowthatyou’rebackinNigeriabutin adifferentcity,whatareyourimpressions ofLagos?

Lagos is like Cairo. If you’ve lived in Cairo, you can feel the similarities. Cairo is a highly populated city of about 20 million people, the same as Lagos. There’s also a lot of traffic.

Lagos is a very good market for me. You can find all segments of customers that we are targeting. I’m happy to be in Lagos in spite of the competition.

We have many Egyptian companies working in construction, IT and communications in Lagos.

I always tell Egyptians that Nigerians are kind people, that they’re not difficult to deal with. And now we’re encouraging Egyptian companies to invest here in Nigeria.

During the three to four months I’ve spent here, I noticed that many Egyptian companies are coming here looking for opportunities.

For example, at the end of this month, we have the Egyptian universities fair, which will be held in Abuja, Kano and here in Lagos. We’re also preparing for another fair for Egyptian industrial companies.

From my point of view, the movement has changed during the first time I was here from 2009 to 2013, and now. Many more Egyptian businessmen and corporates are investing, especially in Lagos.

This is due to the efforts of the Egyptian Embassy through His Excellency, Ambassador Assem Hanafi, and the Egyptian Commercial Service led by Muhammad Abdullah. They also help Nigerian businesses with information on Egypt.

While I earlier talked about passengers between both countries, I didn’t talk about cargo. We have very good movement of cargo, one flight a week from both Lagos and Kano and in future we plan to increase this to daily cargo flights to Lagos, because the volume of the trade between Egypt and Nigeria is good.