Honorable Minister Mohamed Awad Tag-El-Din,

Honorable Dr. Hamdy El Said,

President of Egyptian Medical Syndicate,

Honorable Chairman Hitlar Tantawy,

Honorable Ministers and Ambassadors,

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am thrilled by the presence of this distinguished group. I want to thank the Egyptian Medical Syndicate for holding this Awards Ceremony for me. And thank you, Dr. Said, for your kind introduction and compliments, which are more than I may deserve. I am deeply honored and moved to receive this Certificate of Honor and the Doctorial Special Shield you presented to me. While I feel there are still a lot of work to be done to live up to your expectations, I would take this honor as an encouragement and more importantly as an epitome of profound friendship cherished by the Egyptian people for the Chinese people and of the great importance the Egyptian Medical Syndicate attaches to the cooperation with China.

The Egyptian Medical Syndicate enjoys a long history and high prestige in the Egyptian medical circles, many of whose members are elite medical professionals in Egypt. The Syndicate has long been committed to promoting China-Egypt medical cooperation. I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation and admiration for your great work in this regard.

China and Egypt are ancient civilizations. Both have made great contributions to the development of medical and health cause of the humanity. As long as four to five thousand years ago, Egyptians had pooled vast knowledge on medical service and they could even perform very complicated surgical operations. This fine tradition has been carried on even to this day. The medical professionals in today抯 Egypt are of high professional standard and the Egyptian medical industry is of high competitiveness.

Likewise, the Chinese medical science, which was constantly enriched in the past 5000 years, has produced generations of outstanding medical theoreticians and practitioners who left us a treasure of numerous medical classics. In this way, a kind of unique Chinese system of medical and medicine science has taken shape, which ensured China a prominent position in world medical science. Today, China is very competitive both in terms of research, clinical practice and pharmaceutical production. The Chinese scientists have done their part ahead of schedule in the international project of DNA sequencing of human genome. They have invented new medicines for such hard-treat cases as hepatitis, cancer and AIDs. The medical industry is booming in China, which boasts the 7th biggest medical market in the world with more than 6000 pharmaceutical companies and enterprises. All this presents enormous opportunities for cooperation between China and Egypt in the medical field.

In recent years, especially since the Presidents of our two countries decided to establish China-Egypt strategic and cooperative relationship in 1999, cooperation in all areas including medical field between China and Egypt has made remarkable progress. Last year, President Mubarak抯 visit to China and Premier Zhu Rongji抯 visit to Egypt provided a powerful stimulus to the cooperation between our two countries in the medical field. Since then the exchanges of visits between medical professionals have increased and the government departments have formally established working relations, which resulted in many tangible progress. China and Egypt signed draft agreement on co-producing insulin and Egypt has successfully introduced from China the medicine for hepatitis.

Looking into the future, the prospects for medical cooperation between China and Egypt are indeed unlimited. We have a lot to cooperate in medicine research, production and trade. We have a lot to benefit from expanding our cooperation in traditional medicine where we both enjoy the leading edge. We have a lot to gain in promoting the exchanges between Chinese and Egyptian medical professionals as well as enterprises. We will make more efforts in exploring new horizon of cooperation so as to advance with the tides of the most up-to-date medical science. It is my strong belief that the significance of cooperation between China and Egypt in medical and health field goes way beyond our national borders. It will not only bring benefits to our two peoples, but also make positive contributions to enhancing medical progress in the developing world and promoting the health welfare of the world. Let抯 us work together for this noble cause.

Thank you.