The Palestinian Authority is looking forward to deepening cooperation with Egypt in various fields, especially economic, educational and health, within the framework of a plan for gradual disengagement from Israel.

A Palestinian government delegation headed by Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh visited Egypt last Monday. The delegation included the ministers of foreign affairs, interior, national economy, health, transportation, public works, housing, higher education, endowments, health and the energy authority.

During his three-day visit, Shtayyeh held political consultations with Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly, as well as individual meetings between ministers of common jurisdiction to discuss strengthening bilateral relations.

Shtayyeh said at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting in the city of Ramallah in the central West Bank today (Monday) that the visit to Egypt resulted in important political consultations regarding the Palestinian-Egyptian relations.

In parallel, Shtayyeh explained that the joint experience between Egypt and the Palestinians will be presented to establish a unified window for investment services, referring to an understanding between the two ministries of economy in the fields of specifications, metrology and gold stamping.

The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture also signed a cooperation protocol with its Egyptian counterpart to enhance trade exchange of Palestinian agricultural products to the Egyptian market, import fertilizers and veterinary vaccines, cooperate in the field of agricultural research, and increase the number of scholarships, including scholarships for veterinary medicine, according to Shtayyeh.

In the educational field, he said that the Egyptian government agreed to consider increasing the discount in university fees for Palestinian high school graduates in Palestine and expanding the student segment to include Palestinian refugees who hold documents from countries of asylum, and that the discount rate include private and technological universities and higher institutes.

Shtayyeh indicated that it was agreed to train a number of information technology managers from government department employees on data governance requirements to start digitizing the government, train a number of planning and performance and quality measurement managers in the Palestinian government sector, and train 20 Palestinian doctors annually in Egyptian hospitals.

Concerning the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, Shtayyeh pointed to the formation of a joint technical committee to study the delivery of electric current from Egypt to the Strip, and another to develop proposals to benefit from the reconstruction programs funded by Egypt in Gaza and to review the outputs and inputs of the Rafah crossing, commercial and human.

For his part, Zafer Melhem, head of the Energy and Natural Resources Authority in the Palestinian Authority, considered that providing energy from Egypt to the Strip, which is inhabited by more than two million people and has been subject to an Israeli blockade for 16 years, will contribute to reducing dependence on Israeli energy.

Melhem told Xinhua that the most important thing that was agreed upon regarding energy is the formation of a Palestinian-Egyptian team to study the requirements for reconnecting the electrical connection between Egypt and the Gaza Strip through Sheikh Zuweid or Al-Arish to the city of Rafah.

Melhem added, "There is an aspiration in the first phase to supply 100 megawatts to the Palestinian side from Egypt, provided that this is expanded in the future to reach 150 megawatts for the benefit of the sector, and this would gradually dispense with Israeli electricity."

This is the second visit by Shtayyeh to Egypt since the formation of his government by presidential decree in April 2019, as the first was in October of the same year, during which he met his counterpart, Madbouly, and described it as successful.

Since assuming her duties, the Palestinian government, headed by Shtayyeh, has been working on a plan for gradual economic disengagement from Israel, which includes several areas, most notably agriculture, health and energy.
The Palestinian government previously signed 9 agreements and memorandums of understanding with Jordan in December 2021 with the aim of enhancing cooperation between the two sides.

In this regard, Palestinian Minister of Economy Khaled al-Osaily told Xinhua that the government delegation's visit to Egypt comes within the plans to expand economic trade relations with neighboring countries such as Egypt and Jordan, as well as Turkey, and the government's plan to gradually disengage from Israel.

Osaily added that there is a deficit in the trade balance between Palestine and Israel, and there may be a balance in this balance if we invest in the economic relationship with other countries whose products may be in competition with the Israeli product.

He pointed out that Palestine exports to Israel between 800 million and 1 billion dollars annually, while it imports up to 4 billion dollars, which could drop to less than that.

He stressed the importance of bringing Egyptian investments to Palestine through holding a series of meetings with the Egyptian private sector, noting that the head of the Federation of Egyptian Industries and a delegation of Egyptian businessmen will visit the Palestinian territories next September.

He added that the prospects for investment in Palestine achieve important numbers through the data of the Capital Market Authority, and these numbers were presented during meetings with investors from Egypt, and there are positive signs of opening investment horizons in Palestine to him.

Osaily considered that what has been agreed upon will have a positive impact in working to support the Palestinian efforts to gradually disengage from the Israeli economy, even if the numbers were modest at the beginning, but they will gradually rise.