Distinguished ACF Chairman Engineer Ibrahim Yunes,
Chief of EAF Engineering Department Major General Hamid Eid,
H.E. the Chinese Ambassador Mr. Liu Xiaoming,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

Today, it is my great pleasure to award the K-8E final assembly and flight test certificate to AOI/ACF.

On behalf of China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation (CATIC), Hongdu Aviation Group Company, I hereby express my warm congratulation to Chairman Younes and all the guests and friends. Awarding the certificate to AOI/ACF by CATIC is an important milestone for K-8E co-production program, which represents AOI/ACF has possess the capability of production, quality assurance and management needed for K-8E A/C final assembly and flight test. This is a great achievement for Egypt to re-establish her own aviation industry, also a remarkable outcome through the Egypt-China joint efforts.

When we signed the K-8E co-production contract in 1999, some friends show their doubt on whether our two sides were able to execute this grand contract as per the requirement. Now the fact tells us that 40 K-8E A/C have been successfully manufactured in AOI/ACF, among them 38 A/C delivered to EAF, 2 A/C to be delivered soon. This has been made in such a short period through the joint efforts of Chinese and Egyptian technician, which proves the capability of our two sides. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to our partners, AOI and its ACF, Electronics factory, EAF Helwan depot, my appreciation to Egyptian Ministry of Defense, Egyptian Air Force, to H.E. Chinese Ambassador Liu Xiaoming and all the friends who take care and support the program.

Today we all see tremendous changes in AOI/ACF, which not only demonstrate the production facilities upgrading, environment improvement , but further more demonstrate the great change in production management, quality assurance system and empolyee’s skill and expertise. As for the certificate, after our experts evaluated the Phase I activities by AOI/ACF for final assembly and flight test, we concluded that AOI/ACF has met our requirement and standard and the certificate is hereby issued. We will evaluate the activities for Phase I periodically according to ISO quality assurance system to ensure the effectiveness of this certificate. We know AOI/AC has completed its work for Phase I and Phase II and is engaged in Phase III. It is much complicated with regard to the production and technology in Phase III, as well as higher requirement for quality assurance and production management. But we are assured that AOI/ACF is able to continuously manufacture high quality parts for the K-8E A/C.

As what we said repeatedly, K-8E program is just the beginning for our cooperation, and we are strongly confident that we are going to collaborate in more fields.

At last my appreciation to the Chairman for your kind invitation for this ceremony.

Thank you.