Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Egypt in the coming days for talks with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the Egyptian presidency said on Tuesday.
The two leaders will discuss their countries' strategic partnership and regional and international issues, the presidential spokesman said.
The announcement did not specify the exact date of the visit. However, Beijing's foreign ministry and the state-run CGTN channel said the trip would take place between August 30 and September 3, following Mr Xi's attendance at the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation summit in Bishkek, alongside a state visit to Kyrgyzstan.
It will be Mr Xi's first visit to Egypt since January 2016, when he travelled to Cairo as part of a Middle East tour that also took him to Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The stop comes as the two states prepare to mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations, a milestone Egyptian and Chinese officials have flagged repeatedly at recent meetings. Egypt was the first Arab and African country to establish relations with China on May 30, 1956.
At the time, the relationship had a strong anti-colonial approach, but as both countries grew, so did the economic partnership.
In 2008, a Chinese state-linked developer began building the China-Egypt Suez Economic and Trade Co-operation Zone at Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea, aimed at helping Chinese companies to export to Africa.
Egypt and China then elevated their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, including infrastructure, technology, defence, finance and energy in December 2014, during Mr El Sisi's first visit to Beijing.
In January 2016, Mr Xi visited Cairo on his first visit to Egypt. During the visit, Egypt and China signed more than 20 agreements covering infrastructure, electricity, transport, trade, finance, energy, technology, telecoms, space and civil aviation. The agreements were valued at roughly $15 billion as part of a package of projects and financing arrangements.
China also provided major financial support to Egypt, which was particularly important because Cairo was facing a severe foreign-exchange shortage.
Mr Sisi returned to China in May 2024 for the China-Arab States Co-operation Forum, where the two sides adopted a three-year action plan for 2024-2026 covering areas including trade, investment, technology, climate change and security.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang followed with a two-day visit to Cairo in July 2025, during which the governments signed agreements on finance, e-commerce, health and low-carbon development and their central banks agreed to expand the use of local currencies in trade settlement.
Trade has grown alongside the political warming but remains heavily skewed.
Egypt's state statistics agency recorded bilateral trade of about $17.4 billion in 2024, with Chinese shipments to Egypt of $15.5 billion. The Egyptian Commercial Service put trade at roughly $20.8 billion in 2025, with Chinese exports of $19.9 billion against Egyptian exports of $819 million.
For Egypt, Mr Xi’s visit is an opportunity to secure more Chinese investment in electric vehicles, electronics, renewable energy and industrial production, particularly around the Suez Canal Economic Zone, under the Executive Program for the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which runs until 2028.
China has been Egypt's largest trading partner for more than a decade, and Cairo has repeatedly pressed for wider access to the Chinese market and for Chinese firms to shift manufacturing onshore, particularly in electric vehicles, solar components and desalination equipment.
