Italy is Egypt's largest trade partner in the
European Union, and is the third largest internationally following the United States and China. Furthermore, Italy's investments in Egypt are worth $2.6 billion, mostly concentrated in transport and banking services among other sectors, making it the fifth largest European investor in Egypt. By the end of 2014, the volume of trade between the two countries reportedly reached $6 billion. In April 2016, diplomatic relations between the two countries were seriously strained when an Italian PhD student from the
University of Cambridge was found brutally murdered in
Cairo after he went missing in January of the same year. Subsequently, Italy withdrew its ambassador to Egypt for consultations in
Rome regarding the criminal death of
Giulio Regeni, who, at the time, conducted critical academic research on Egyptian labour rights and
trade unions. Egyptian law enforcement then produced conflicting information on the fate of the Italian citizen, which was unacceptable to Italian investigators. As a result, the Italian press and
foreign ministry pointed at the systematic human right violations in Egypt, and threatened with political sanctions unless police leadership and practices undergo significant revisions. The
detention of Patrick Zaki, the Egyptian student who is enrolled on an
Erasmus Mundus Master's degree at the
University of Bologna, has further strained diplomatic relations. He was detained on 7 February 2020 when returning to Cairo to visit family. He has since been detained in
Tora Prison despite international calls for his release from organizations such as
Amnesty International and
Scholars at Risk, as well as the appeals of Italian Members of European Parliament. Several Italian cities, including
Bologna,
Milan and
Naples have made Zaki an honorary citizen as part of the campaign "100 Città per Patrick" (100 cities for Patrick) ==Resident diplomatic missions==