CAIRO: Terrorism remains among the greatest challenges facing humanity,” Egypt’s president said during his speech at a summit in Beijing that brought together Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Abdel Fattah El-Sisi praised “the BRICS group’s keenness to adopt a common vision toward political and economic issues of interest to developing countries, especially with regard to exploring prospects for development cooperation and support for development financing.”

He added: “The efforts focused on addressing the repercussions of the current economic crisis should not come at the expense of supporting sustainable development in the least developed and developing countries, countries that still suffer from a lack of development financing.”

El-Sisi said: “Achieving development goals must come in parallel with all international efforts to address traditional and non-traditional challenges, top of which are the issues of terrorism and climate change.”

He added: “The phenomenon of terrorism violates the basic rights of citizens, foremost of which is the right to life, and hinders the efforts of governments toward achieving the economic and social goals of their people.”

He said: “Egypt stresses the need to adopt a comprehensive approach that includes various dimensions to dry up the sources of terrorism and prevent the provision of funding, safe havens and media platforms for terrorist organizations, as well as addressing the economic and social conditions and factors that push some to extremism and joining terrorist groups.”

Egypt previously participated as a guest in the BRICS Summit hosted by China in September 2017.