In June 2024, four Indian Air Force Rafale jets flew joint exercises with their Egyptian counterparts over Cairo. The image — Indian and Egyptian Rafales in formation above the Pyramids — was striking enough to circulate widely. It was also, for most of India's strategic commentariat, a one-day story. Egypt returned to the margins of Indian foreign policy discourse within the week, crowded out by the more familiar preoccupations of the Indo-Pacific, the neighbourhood, and the great power triangle.

That instinct to marginalise Egypt is a strategic mistake, and an increasingly costly one. Egypt is not a peripheral partner. It is the largest country in the Arab world by population, the guardian of the Suez Canal through which roughly 12% of global trade passes, a founding member of the African Union and the Arab League, a BRICS member since January 2024, a country with active interest in Indian defence exports, and a civilisational state with which India shares a history of alignment that stretches back to Nehru and Nasser. The structural case for treating Egypt as a central pillar of Indian foreign policy is overwhelming. The execution has not matched the opportunity.

The Strategic Logic, Plainly Stated

Egypt sits at the intersection of three geographies that matter deeply to India: the Arab world, Africa, and the Mediterranean-Red Sea corridor. No other single bilateral relationship gives India simultaneous access to all three. That geographic centrality is not incidental — it is the reason Egypt matters to every major power, and why China, the United States, Russia, and the Gulf states have all invested seriously in Cairo while India has engaged episodically.

The Suez Canal is the most direct expression of that centrality. Approximately 30% of India's trade with Europe transits through the canal. Indian naval vessels moving between the Arabian Sea and the Mediterranean depend on the Red Sea corridor that Egypt anchors at its northern end. The Houthi disruptions to Red Sea shipping that escalated through 2024 — forcing vessels to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, adding weeks and significant cost to voyages — demonstrated exactly how exposed India's trade and energy supply chains are to instability in this corridor. Egypt is not simply a diplomatic partner in this context. It is a strategic infrastructure node.

Egypt's African dimension is equally important and equally underweighted in Indian thinking. Cairo's membership in the African Union, its historical relationships across North and East Africa, and its role as the Arab world's largest economy give it influence on the continent that India is actively trying to cultivate through its Africa doctrine. An India that invests seriously in the Egypt relationship gains a partner with existing networks and institutional weight across African corridors where India is still building presence from scratch.

And then there is the multilateral dimension. Egypt's BRICS membership since January 2024 places it in a forum that India is simultaneously trying to shape and prevent from becoming a Chinese-dominated anti-Western bloc. Having a strong bilateral relationship with Cairo gives New Delhi a partner within BRICS with whom it shares non-alignment instincts, Global South positioning, and a genuine interest in multipolarity that does not translate into automatic alignment with Beijing. That is strategically valuable in a forum where India's ability to build coalitions will determine its influence.

What Has Actually Been Built

The past three years have produced real institutional depth, and it would be wrong to dismiss what has been constructed. The elevation to Strategic Partnership in June 2023 — during PM Modi's first visit to Egypt in 26 years, which itself was notable for being the first bilateral visit by an Indian Prime Minister since Narasimha Rao in 1995 — created a formal framework across four pillars: politics and security; economic engagement; scientific and academic cooperation; and culture and people-to-people ties. President Sisi's presence as Chief Guest at India's Republic Day in January 2023, and his conferral of the Order of the Nile on Modi during the reciprocal visit, signalled genuine political will on both sides.

The defence relationship has moved with particular speed. The Indian Air Force participated for the first time in Egypt's Tactical Leadership Programme in June-July 2022, sending Su-30MKI and C-17 aircraft. India joined the US CENTCOM-led Bright Star multilateral exercise in 2023. Exercise Cyclone — joint Special Forces exercises — has reached its third edition as of February 2025. The Egyptian Navy participated in MILAN-2024. The defence exports pipeline is active: Cairo has expressed interest in the Tejas LCA Mk-1A, Akash missiles, radars, and military helicopters. As India pushes to grow its defence export programme — targeting $5 billion in annual exports — Egypt represents one of the more credible large-ticket opportunities outside the immediate neighbourhood.

On the economic side, around 55 Indian companies have invested over $4 billion in Egypt across renewable energy, pharmaceuticals, ICT, and manufacturing, employing approximately 38,000 Egyptians. Serum Institute launched a hepatitis vaccine production line in Egypt in 2023 with 100 million doses annual capacity. Tech Mahindra established its first Global Delivery Centre in Egypt in late 2022. India participated in the India-Africa ICT Expo in 2025 with 45 companies and 20 startups. These are not trivial engagements. They represent genuine industrial presence.

And yet the headline trade number — $7.26 billion — has been cited alongside the $12 billion target for three years now without any serious public accounting of what the gap requires, what the timeline is, or what structural barriers are preventing its closure.

The Gaps That Define the Relationship's Ceiling

Egypt's economic vulnerabilities are real and must be factored into any honest assessment of the partnership's near-term ceiling. Cairo carries foreign debt exceeding $163 billion — over 43% of GDP. Inflation has run above 20%. The IMF has been a recurring presence. An economy under this kind of structural stress is not an ideal partner for the kind of large-scale, long-horizon industrial investment that would transform the bilateral relationship. Indian companies investing in Egypt face currency risk, regulatory uncertainty, and an investment climate that the World Bank ranks as challenging.

The Kashmir irritant has not disappeared. Egypt joined China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey in boycotting the G20 tourism meeting India held in Srinagar in 2023 — a pointed diplomatic signal that India, to its credit, chose to absorb rather than retaliate against. Modi's Cairo visit proceeded regardless. But Egypt's position in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation means it will periodically face pressure to signal on Kashmir in ways that create friction. India's decision to proceed over that friction was correct; it should not be mistaken for an absence of the underlying tension.

The China factor is the most structurally significant constraint. China's bilateral trade with Egypt is roughly double India's. Chinese companies are deeply embedded in Egyptian infrastructure, including in the new administrative capital being built east of Cairo. Beijing has invested in Egyptian manufacturing zones, power infrastructure, and logistics. The Belt and Road Initiative footprint in Egypt is substantial. India is not competing from a position of advantage in this landscape — it is competing from a position of catch-up, against a rival with deeper pockets, longer institutional presence, and fewer political complications in its Egyptian engagement.

That competitive disadvantage is not a reason to disengage. It is a reason to be more deliberate, more funded, and more strategically focused than India has been.

The Suez Canal Economic Zone: India's Underutilised Opening

One of the most concrete and underexplored opportunities in the India-Egypt relationship is the Suez Canal Economic Zone. The SCZone — a 461-square-kilometre special economic zone straddling the canal on both banks — offers streamlined business registration, tax incentives, and direct access to global shipping lanes that make it one of the most strategically positioned manufacturing locations in the world. Egypt has explicitly offered India a dedicated industrial estate within the SCZone, a proposal that has been discussed at multiple levels without producing a committed Indian investment decision.

The strategic logic of an Indian manufacturing presence in the SCZone is compelling. Indian companies producing for European and North African markets from an SCZone base would benefit from preferential access under Egypt's trade agreements with the European Union, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), and the Arab Free Trade Area — none of which India currently has. Egypt's geographic position means SCZone-manufactured goods can reach European ports faster than goods shipped from Indian factories. For Indian companies in sectors like textiles, pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, and electronics, this is a genuine competitive advantage that the current bilateral relationship is leaving entirely on the table.

The fertiliser dimension is similarly underleveraged. Egypt is among the world's largest wheat importers. When the Russia-Ukraine war disrupted Black Sea grain supplies in 2022, Egypt turned to India — and Indian agricultural exports to Cairo rose sharply. A formal food security framework, with India as Egypt's primary grain and fertiliser partner, would lock in an offtake relationship that serves Indian agricultural export ambitions while giving Egypt supply chain security it genuinely needs. An Indian fertiliser delegation visited Egypt as recently as April 2025, but the engagement remains transactional rather than architecturally significant.

What a Central Partnership Would Actually Look Like

Treating Egypt as a central rather than peripheral partner requires three things India has not yet fully committed to.

First, a dedicated institutional architecture. The existing mechanisms — Foreign Office Consultations, Joint Defence Committee meetings, Joint Trade Commissions — are functional but episodic. A central partnership requires an annual summit-level commitment, a dedicated joint working group on the SCZone industrial estate, and a bilateral investment treaty that addresses the currency and regulatory risks that currently deter larger Indian capital commitments. India has this architecture with Japan, Australia, and the UAE. Egypt warrants the same tier of institutional investment.

Second, a Tejas decision. Egypt's interest in the Tejas LCA Mk-1A has been publicly stated for over two years. A concluded deal — with technology transfer components, maintenance agreements, and a pathway to licensed production — would do more to anchor the strategic partnership than any number of joint exercises or MoUs. India's defence export ambitions need showcase customers. Egypt, with its significant air force modernisation requirements and its regional influence, would be one of the most impactful. The negotiation needs to move from expression of interest to concluded contract.

Third, a serious engagement with Egypt's African role. India's Africa doctrine is maturing — from aid-based engagement toward defence partnerships, digital infrastructure, and resource diplomacy. Egypt is not just an end-market in this framework; it is a gateway, a platform, and a coalition partner for the broader African engagement India is trying to build. The two countries should be co-ordinating positions in the African Union, co-investing in African infrastructure through trilateral development frameworks, and jointly shaping the terms of Global South representation in multilateral institutions.

The Nehru-Nasser relationship was not built on sentiment alone. It was built on a shared strategic assessment that non-aligned solidarity was a genuine source of power for post-colonial states navigating a bipolar world. The circumstances have changed — India is no longer non-aligned in any meaningful operational sense — but the underlying logic of the Egypt partnership remains sound. Two large, strategically located, non-Western civilisational states with converging interests in multipolarity, Global South leadership, and the stability of shared maritime corridors have every reason to treat each other as central partners.

India elevated the relationship to a Strategic Partnership in 2023. Three years later, it still reads more like an aspiration than an architecture. That gap needs to close — and the initiative to close it needs to come from New Delhi.

The Hind covers policy, power, and strategic affairs from India's perspective.