You are working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Mauritius and you are requested to

accompany a delegation visiting the country of your choice as the country expert.

Name: Samy Varounen

Class: History & Political Science
ID: 1516172

1. Introduction

A Mauritian delegation comprising members of the Mauritian Business and Trade Council
(MBTC) together with Board members of the Mauritian Tourism Authority will be visiting Cairo
and some major Egyptian cities during the upcoming week. The purpose of this delegation is in
regards to the probable enlargement of the trading relations between Egypt and Mauritius and
subsequent establishment of Mauritius as a tourist destination for Egyptian and vice versa. The
prospect of bolstering the bilateral relations between Mauritius and Egypt has always been
appealing to the ministry. Egypt is endowed with vast resources like oil and natural gas which
they sell at appropriate tariff. Such a delegation will endeavour at strengthening Mauritian ties
with countries in the Middle East.

2. Location
Egypt, officially known as the Arab Republic of Egypt, is located in North Africa and Southwest
Asia. The majority of the country is located in northeastern Africa, but its Sinai Peninsula
extends into Southwest Asia, connecting the two continents.
Egypt shares its borders with the Gaza Strip and Israel, Sudan, and Libya, and has water
boundaries along the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Egypt has an area of about 390,120.66
square miles, and a population of over 92 million people, making it the fifteenth most populous
country in the world.

3. Religion

Since antiquity, Egypt has been a center for religious thought. Most people who live in Cairo are
Muslim. The Muslim community is further divided between the Sunni and the Shi’ite. There are
also many Christians in Egypt, making up perhaps around 10 per cent of the population. The
majority of Christians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church, which was the dominant religion
in Egypt before Islam. There are only a handful of Jews left in Cairo - about two hundred. Most
of Egypt's Jewish population has immigrated in the last fifty years to Israel or the United States.
 4. History

Home to the world’s oldest civilization which rose on the banks of the Nile around 5000 years
ago when the first dynasty of pharaohs came to power, Egypt has flourished culturally and
history in a very continuous and consistent way since prehistoric times. When the empire fell,
Nubians, North Africans and Persians invaded but Egypt remained relatively stable until AD 640
when the Arabs arrived, bringing Islam. Egypt fell to the Turks in 1517 and was later invaded by
both the British and the French at different points in time.

Egypt aligned itself with the Allies in WWI and afterwards, the Wafd national political party was
formed. In 1952, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser led a group of military officers and pulled off a
coup. The British and French invaded but the United Nations-deployed peacekeepers insisted
that the invaders should leave.

President Hosni Mubarak was elected to serve his fifth term as president in Egypt's first
contested presidential race in 2005. Periodic attacks on tourists resumed in Sinai in 2005 and
2006 but are generally assumed to be one-off events rather than a sustained terrorist campaign. In
2011 after demonstrations in Egypt Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign and a new chapter in the
history of Egypt began. Egypt gained a new constitution in 2014.

5. Political System

Egypt being a Republic with a democratic system outlines a seemingly a fair political system
with seemingly well-defined public authorities. The Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt,
adopted in 1971 and amended in 1980, has its roots in the English Common Law and the
Napoleonic Code. It declares Egypt as an Arab Republic with a democratic system.
The Parliament of Egypt is currently a unicameral legislature. Made up of a house of
representative. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is the current president.

6. Resources
Egypt's natural resources include petroleum, natural gas, phosphates, and iron ore. Crude oil is
found primarily in the Gulf of Suez and in the Western Desert. Egypt is the largest non-OPEC oil
producer in Africa, with crude oil production at 711,500 barrels a day. It is also the continent's
second-largest natural gas producer, supplying an average of 2.2 trillion cubic feet of gas a day.
The petroleum industry accounted for 10 percent of government revenues in 2016 and 38 percent
of exports.

Snapping a trade deal with Egypt in regards to Natural Gas or Oil production could prove to be
extremely profitable to Mauritius on the long run. The fact Egypt is ready to grant us a better
tariff is very appealing as such.
 7. Tourism

The purpose of our present delegation comes within the framework of promoting Mauritian
tourism. Mauritius has seen a sharp rise in tourist coming from the Middle East. Egypt is
believed to be yet another realm where the Mauritian economy can extract direct return from.
The delegation includes Sandra Mayotte and Linzi Bacbotte who ought to promote the musical
traditional of our island and are expected to perform during the gala night organized at Cairo.
This delegation also will endeavour at facilitating the process behind the travel of any Mauritian
to Egypt. Negotiation will be done in accordance as such facilitation is made possible. The
Pyramid of Giza, Luxor Karnak Temple & Valley of Kings, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Alexandria are
said to be the most prominent touristic destinations in the country. With historical and cultural
tourism on the up it will be fitting to open up Egypt to the Mauritian population.

8. Additional Remarks

In recent years the country has been rife with political turmoil, violent protests and terrorism
attacks. All be it Egypt seems stable at the moment, members of the delegation should be
cautious about it. Attacks on foreign journalists and government officials have been noted
through the last decade or so. The Foreign and Commonwealth offices argues that terrorists are
still likely to try to carry out attacks in Egypt Their website states: “You should be vigilant at all
times, avoid crowded places and follow the advice of the Egyptian authorities and your travel
company, if you have one. “Nine tourists were killed in September 2015 in the Western Desert
when they were mistakenly attacked and killed by the Egyptian military who thought they were
terrorists. A Croatian man was kidnapped and killed by ISIS in July 2015 in the western desert
near Cairo. And in June 2015, terrorists tried to attack Karnak Temple in Luxor; the first attack
in nearly 20.