China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has attracted widespread attention, both at home and abroad, since it was first proposed in 2013. Egypt, which has always had good ties with China, saw BRI cooperation go up a notch during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the two countries teamed up to produce vaccines for Africa.

CGTN spoke to Essam Sharaf, former prime minister of Egypt, who said China has played a great role in the global fight against the pandemic and built many cooperation projects in African countries and other regions to promote coordinated development.