The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has held a series of meetings with senior officials from international ICT organization, during his participation in the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2019) on February 25-28, in Barcelona.
Talaat has met with the World Bank Vice President for Infrastructure Makhtar Diop, where they discussed ways to maximize the benefits of cooperation between the World Bank and the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA).
Discussion included the use of an international consulting firm to develop and implement a comprehensive national strategy to increase Egypt’s ICT exports to foreign markets. Preparation for the strategy will include identifying and evaluating Egypt's IT competitive advantage, evaluating service providers, identifying major constraints to growth and how to overcome them, and targeted markets for export.
The to be launched strategy of increasing Egypt’s exports is expected to turn Egypt into an international hub for digital services, an attractive destination for centers of excellence in emerging technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G services, and information security, as well as an advanced electronic design and manufacturing center.
Moreover, Talaat has met with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) CEO and President Goran Marby. They discussed the importance of the governmental role within ICANN, and represented its strategic plan for the period 2021-2025. They highlighted the importance of developing the Domain Name System (DNS) industry in Egypt, as well as creating an enabling environment to support the growth of such industry and the local content and e-services included.
During the meeting, Talaat said that Egypt is keen on actively participating in the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), which reviews the governments' views on Internet resource management.
ICANN is a non-profit organization that includes members from all over the world. It is responsible for maintaining a secure and stable Internet operation around the globe.
The ICT Minister has also met with Etisalat CEO Saleh Al Abdooli. They discussed Etisalat’s plan to provide local voice call services, and its plan to provide communication services inside closed urban communities (compounds), especially after signing a relevant license with the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) in February.
During the meeting, they highlighted the importance of the participation of Egyptian telecom companies in providing mobile money transfer services, being one of the pillars of the executive plans to strengthen Egypt’s efforts to spread financial inclusion culture.
The meeting was attended by Etisalat Chief Operating Officer Hatem Dewidar, Etisalat Misr Chief Executive Officer Hazem Metwally and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Khaled Hegazy.
In addition, the ICT Minister has met with PCCW Global CEO Marc Halbfinger. They discussed cooperation in marine cables and data centers. PCCW Global Chief Commercial Officer Frederick Chui attended the meeting.
PCCW Global is a leading communication company that provides latest voice and data solutions to multinational companies and telecommunications services providers around the world.
Talaat, as well, has met with Software AG CTO Bernd Gross. They explored ways of mutual cooperation in ICT, and the possibility of establishing a software development center for the company in Egypt and an IT services support center to provide marketing, sales and advisory services.
The meeting was attended by a number of executive officials at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), NTRA, ITIDA, and Telecom Egypt (TE).
Talaat has visited Huawei booth in MWC to explore its latest technologies and advanced communication devices. Huawei and TE signed yesterday a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish the first cloud computing system in the Middle East and Egypt.
