IO, Jakarta – Egyptian citizens residing in Indonesia together celebrated the 67th National Day of Egypt at the Central Jakarta residence of the Egyptian ambassador, H.E. Ahmed Amr Ahmed Moawad, on Tuesday, 23 July 2019. Also attending the celebration were diplomats, Government of Indonesia officials and other invitees from the Indonesian people.
National day, also known as “Revolution Day”, commemorates the establishment of the Republic; it is celebrated every July 23rd, to commemorate the same day in 1952 when the Arab Egypt Republic was first established, following the overthrow of King Farouk and the monarchy. It is an important annual national holiday for the country to recall the hard-fought battle to reclaim Egyptian freedom, and the successful revolutionary abolition of the constitutional monarchy.
In his opening remarks, Ambassador Ahmed Amr Ahmed Moawad first expressed his appreciation to all guests attending the celebration. “I am very happy to see what has been achieved in our bilateral relations, and we are also proud to say that we were very first to recognized the newly-proclaimed Government of Indonesia following independence,” he reminded all.
The Egyptian government recognized the sovereignty of the Indonesian government on March 22, 1946. Thus Egypt was listed as the first country to recognize the proclamation of Indonesian independence. Diplomatic relations between two countries were created in June, 10 1947.
“Currently In the past few weeks, we have a lot of delegations, whether coming from Cairo to Jakarta, or vice versa. And we had also a very high-ranking delegation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who visited Egypt, for a political dialogue and bilateral relations”.
As he mentioned, Indonesia and Egypt held bilateral consultations in Cairo, Egypt on Thursday (27/6/2019). In the meeting, the two countries agreed to increase economic cooperation. Six fields of cooperation agreed upon by the MoU were signed: a Joint Meeting Formation Commission, the establishment of a Joint Trade Committee, cooperation in fisheries, health, energy and defense.
Egypt is one of the important non-traditional trading partners and the 26th export partner for Indonesia. In 2018, total trade value between Indonesia and Egypt reached US $ 1.10 billion with Indonesia holding a surplus of US $ 893,808.40.
About 6000 Indonesian students pursue undergraduate studies in Egypt. Given its weight as the largest Muslim country, Alazhar University has dispatched 30 Imams and the Ministry of Awqaf of Egypt has dispatched one Imam to Indonesia to teach the Arabic language and religious science.(Rei)