Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Egypt seeks to amend trade agreement with US, Israel

Al-Masry Al-Youm 

Egypt has entered negotiations with the United States and Israel to amend the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ) trade agreement, said Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Hatem Saleh on Monday.

“Egypt considers the QIZ a trade agreement, not a political deal,” Saleh said. “And we seek to achieve greater economic return from it.”

The three nations entered into the QIZ agreement in December 2004. The deal exempts Egyptian exports to the United States from the quota system that the US applies to all other countries, provided the Egyptian exports contained an Israeli component of 11.7 percent, an amount that was reduced to 10.5 in 2007.

Egypt now seeks to further reduce that amount to 8 percent.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

Comment:  This is but one of many "new" economic requests coming from Egypt. The MB knows that it "owns" this Administration and this is simply another form of appeasement placed upon our table and ,once the USA agrees, the die is cast for Israel. Talk about "throwing Israel under the bus" while framing it as a necessary tool to give the fledgling new democracy in Egypt-good grief!!

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