There are four Al Jazeera journalists currently detained in Egypt.

Egypt’s investment official Mohamed Ahmed Abdel Wahab travelled to Qatar on Sunday in an effort to seek investment opportunities in the Gulf state

Abdel Wahab, CEO of the Egyptian General Authority for Investment and Free Zones, was accompanied by a business delegation to boost bilateral investment in various fields as part of meetings with business officials.

According to Doha’s state news agency (QNA), the Egyptian official met with Qatar’s Minister of Commerce Sheikh Mohammed Al-Thani, where the latter highlighted incentives, legislation and an array of investment opportunities in the Gulf state.

In another meeting, Abdel Wahab and the Qatari Businessmen Association agreed to coordinate mutual visits to discover investment opportunities.

The Cairo official noted that such cooperation contributes to its economic growth, describing Egyptian expats in Qatar as one of the key supporters of his country’s economy.

There are approximately more than 350,000 Egyptian nationals in the Gulf state.

“The Egyptian economy has many competitive elements, with Egyptian trade investments and agreements with its African and Arab neighbours being at the top of those elements,” said Abdel Wahab.

The meeting follows the signing of investment deals totaling $5 billion between Qatar and Egypt in March. The two countries inked the major deals during the visit of Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani to Egypt.

Qatar and Egypt also agreed to form a joint higher committee headed by the two countries’ foreign ministers to strengthen their bilateral cooperation, as diplomatic ties return to “their normal state.”

Post Al-Ula

The agreement and the latest high-profile meetings are major indicators of the restoration of Qatar and Egypt’s ties following the 2017 GCC crisis.

At the time, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt severed diplomatic ties with Qatar over unfounded claims of supporting terrorism. Qatar has vehemently denied those claims.

The embargo was then lifted on 5 January 2021 with the signing of the Al-Ula Declaration in Saudi Arabia.

Just hours after signing the historic accord, Qatar Diar Real Estate Company officially opened its prestigious and wholly-owned St. Regis Hotel in Cairo.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi then appointed a new ambassador to Doha in June last year and a month later, Qatar appointed its first envoy to Cairo since the diplomatic rift.

Qatar-based media network, Al Jazeera, also broadcasted live from Egypt in August last year for the first time since 2013. Martyred Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was the first to report live from Cairo at the time.

The network was previously shut down per an Egyptian judicial decision made following a raid that saw the arrest of several journalists.

Despite the resumption of diplomatic ties and Al Jazeera’s return to Egypt, some of its journalists remain behind bars, including Hisham Abdelaziz and Rabie Al-Sheikh.

Last week, Egyptian court sentenced Doha-based Al Jazeera presenter Ahmed Taha to 15 years in prison in absentia. 

Taha was sentenced over claims of “spreading false news” during an interview with Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a leading opposition figure and former presidential candidate in 2018.

“This sentence is not against me; it’s against the Al Jazeera Network, against press freedom and journalists in Egypt,” Taha said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

There are four Al Jazeera journalists currently detained in Egypt.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said last year that Egypt stands as one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists. Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in 2021 that 25 journalists remain in Egyptian prisons. 

Those journalists often spend years in jail and solitary confinement without being formally charged or tried.