CAIRO, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi stressed on Thursday Egypt's keenness to promote economic and trade cooperation with Portugal.

Sisi's comments came during his meeting with visiting Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in Cairo.

"Sisi lauded historic relations binding the two countries, expressing commitment to pushing forward bilateral relations," Presidential spokesman Bassam Rady said in a statement.

Rady noted that President Sisi held a session of talks with de Sousa, who is currently on a three-day visit to Egypt, adding that the session was followed by an expanded meeting grouping the delegations of both countries.

The two leaders urged accelerating the implementation of what was agreed upon by the two sides during the committee meetings in October 2017, Rady said, adding that Sisi updated his Portuguese counterpart on economic reforms in Egypt and promising investments in the under-construction mega national projects.

Sisi said regional and international circumstances and geographic closeness between Egypt and Portugal require more cooperation and coordination to address current serious and complicated challenges and threats that cannot be faced separately like terrorism, organized crime and illegal migration.

The Egyptian spokesman said Sisi's talks with the Portuguese president covered the situation in Libya and Syria and efforts to fight terrorism and dry up its funding sources.

For his part, the Portuguese president lauded progress realized by Egypt in its anti-terror war.