At the invitation of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Land Reclamation of Egypt, a Chinese Delegation led by Mr. Li Guo-an, Director of Northern Anti-drought Base of China, arrived in Cairo on Jan. 9, 2002, for a two-week visit.

The delegation will visit the Toshka Project, Shark El-Ewainat Project in Southern Egypt, Youth program, Institute of Desert and some of the farms in the desert areas in south, etc.

Talking about this visit, Mr. Li said that Egypt, as a country in desert, has accumulated lot of experience on exploring desert areas and underground water, and practical technology to carry out their own major projects such as Toshka, Shark El-Ewainat Project, are useful and significant for China.

In recent years, Chinese government has launched the campaign of West Development to improve the local ecological environment, and to explore the ground water has become major task for the arid land in the area. As a country with similar natural environment, Egypt provides valuable experiences for us, which most of the industrialized countries could not have.