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Minister of local development, Major General Mahmoud Sharawy welcomes Chinese ambassador to Egypt and his associated delegation on 10th of January 2019. The meeting has focused on discussing the different cooperation fields between the two countries especially the fields related to local development, decentralization, raising development indicators in the governorates, and expanding of small and medium projects. 
At the onset, Minister Sharawy has appraised the strategic relation between Egypt and China and the achievements they reached in the different cooperation fields due to the frequent coordination between President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and China’s President, Xi Jinping. Further, General Sharawy appraised the role that the ministry of local development is playing in cooperation with other ministers to reinforce the development of locals and improving the public services. His excellency added that the ministry is highly interested in raising the capacities of its staff and those working in the governorates especially with regard to implementing decentralization and hence, he appraised the significant change in some employees’ performance after attending a training workshop in China.
Further, Minister Sharawy said that the government is highly interested in promoting for the idea of small and medium projects due to their crucial role in development and emphasized on the ministry’s willingness to make use of China’s experience in this field to support youth in the governorates to have their own small or medium projects by having exchange delegations and promoting for cooperation between Chinese training centers and local development center for training in Sakkara.
The ministry of local development is also coordinating with the ministry of environment and other related entities to establish a system for solid waste, based on President El-Sisi’s direction. Accordingly, Minister Sharawy emphasized on the ministry’s interest to make use of China’s experience in solid waste and welcome Chinese companies working in this field to use this opportunity and invest in Egypt. Minister Sharawy added that the Egyptian government is keen to encourage Chinese tourism and emphasized on the importance of twining agreements between Egyptian and Chinese cities in strengthening the ties between the two countries. 
China’s ambassador, Song started his conversation by congratulating minister Sharawy for the position and emphasized on the strong relation between his country and Egypt and the current cooperation between the two countries in the field of local development by the twining between Egyptian and Chinese cities. His excellency also appraised Egypt’s progress in applying economic reform program and stabilizing the security status and emphasized on China’s support to Egypt in different development fields. He also said that he would work on increasing the number of Chinese tourists especially to Luxor, Aswan, Alexandria and Sharm El-Sheikh this year as it reached 400 thousand tourists last year. 
In the end, Ambassador Song said that he will speak to the Chinese government in order to examine the possibilities of increasing the number of training grants to be offered to the ministry of local development during this year.