Related Articles
Doaa Moneim – Ahram Online
“The organisation of the Africa Health ExCon (AHE) in Egypt is a golden opportunity for the country to become a hub for exporting pharmaceutical products to Africa”, Gareth Bayley, the British ambassador to Egypt said on Thursday.
The AHE is a pharmaceutical exhibition which will be held in Egypt for the first time from 5 to 7 June 2022.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed on Thursday between the multinational company AstraZeneca and the Egyptian Authority for Unified Procurement (UPA) to sponsor the AHE.
Based on the MoU, AstraZeneca will sponsor the upcoming AHE, which seeks to enhance trade relations, ensure knowledge transfer and support foreign direct investment in support of African healthcare services. The agreement extends a previous MoU to train over 1,000 pharmacists across Egypt.
“We believe that Egypt can be a hub for Africa and the Middle East region as well in the pharmaceutical sector. There is an ambition for its pharmaceutical exports to reach European countries too”, Bayley added.
He pointed out that the UK is cooperating with Egypt through the World Bank on two key grounds. The cooperation includes the universal health insurance system and the National map for vaccine distribution.
The MoU was signed by Hatem al-Werdany, president of AstraZeneca Egypt, Omar Abdel-Aziz, technical office manager at the UPA, in the presence of Bahaa al-Din Zidan, head of the UPA and Swedish Ambassador to Egypt Håkan Emsgård. Pelin Incesu, area vice president of the Middle East and Africa at AstraZeneca, attended the signing ceremony.
“The forum is meant to link the medical systems in African countries under one umbrella, enhance trade relations, support foreign direct investment, create new job opportunities and guarantee a high level of knowledge transfer”, said Bahaa al-Din Zidan, head of Egypt’s UPA.
