Report on Czechoslovak-Egyptian Economic Relations

“… Following a request from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, an Egyptian delegation, headed by General Hassan Ragab, visited Czechoslovakia last December. Its mission was to negotiate the strengthening of relations between Egypt and Czechoslovakia, mainly in the commercial arena. The Egyptian delegation had an interest in certain items from the 1951 agreement, and specifically in military equipment… It wanted mainly to import metals, engines, armed cars, airplanes and airplane engines … Besides Czechoslovakia, the mission also visited Poland, East Germany, Hungary, the USSR and Romania. Now it can be said that the Egyptian delegation was a propaganda ploy aimed at pressuring the West and inspecting our factories. The Hungarians had the same impression.

The Foreign Ministry proposed to send a Czechoslovak delegation made up of technicians and commercial experts to Egypt, in order to discuss the further development of the [commercial] agreement. The delegation would have also tried to effect changes in the contract to our advantage.

Although the head of the Egyptian delegation, General Ragab, viewed our idea favorably, higher Egyptian authorities – when this idea was discussed with them – stated that the time was not right for the arrival of our delegation. The Egyptian government took the same position regarding the arrival of a Hungarian and a Polish delegation...