The CEBC Investment committee held a roundtable discussion to discuss the topic “The Egyptian Investments in Canada”. The committee invited Mr. Alex Shalaby, Chairman, The Egyptian Company for Mobile Services (Mobinil) and Board Member, Orascom Telecom, to highlight Orascom Telecom’s successful experience in executing a major investment in Canada for the establishment of a mobile telephone GMS network, operating in Canada, entailing an investment of approximately Cdn $2 Billion.

H.E. Ambassador Ferry de Kerckhove, Canada’s Ambassador to Egypt, in addition to a number of business executives from the telecom, banking, and investment sectors.

Mr. Hassan Hussein, Chairman, HH Investments Holding Limited, CEBC Board Member, and Chairman, Investment Committee began the discussions by outlining the investment opportunities for Egyptian IT companies in the Canadian market, as part of the Council’s strategy to foster Egyptian exports to Canada, as well as developing joint investments between both parties. He also declared that the Council is negotiating joining efforts with Information Technology Export Community, “ITEC” of Egypt, to promote IT exports to Canada, which is considered a significant step in light of the Canadian position in the global IT market. This is besides, Egypt’s recent drive to boost IT exports to the international markets.

Mr. Hussein also drew the attention to the MOUs signed during the Council’s latest trade mission to Canada in 2010 between CEBC and the government of Ontario to increase the volume of mutual investments between the two countries. Furthermore, he declared, another memorandum has been recently signed with GAFI to provide supplementary facilities for foreign and especially Canadian investments to Egypt.

Moving on to the main topic of the discussion, Mr. Hussein affirmed that there have been two major Egyptian investments in Canada, which are the Citadel Capital investment of around Cdn $850 million, Calgary-based Rally Energy Corp, which has oil fields in Egypt and Pakistan, as well as the significant Orascom Telecom investment of approximately Cdn $2 billion.

The Chairman of the Investment Committee then gave the floor to Mr. Alex Shalaby, who started his speech by citing the Orascom Telecom investment in Canada describing it as a challenging step especially in such a capital-intensive domain like the telecommunications sector. “However, today, Orascom possesses more than 140,000 subscribers in Canada’s major five cities”. He pointed out that such success stories require an enabling environment where ideas and innovation can flourish and Canada is one of the very promising markets of North America, owing to the diversity of its community, where 80 percent of the Canadian society lives in the urban areas.

Mr. Shalaby went on to describe the key steps of their major investment in Canada, “We launched officially under the name of “Wind Mobile” in two cities in December 2009 which were Calgary and Toronto, followed by Edmonton, Ottawa, and Vancouver in June 2010. We currently have 240 distribution channels, 247 call centers supporting different languages, covering 11.5 million inhabitants and more than 800 employees”, added Mr. Shalaby.

He further explained that promising opportunities in the Canadian market lied in supporting different packages that provide unlimited services whether in voice or data. “We focused on authentic communities and youth offering basic packages for that particular segment on affordable prices, and eventually we owned 48 percent margin of this developed market”, stated Mr. Shalaby.

He finally added that since investment is a two-way stream, Orascom has also looked for and utilized outsourcing opportunities for the Egyptian IT community, which as well holds a number of talented and skilled workforces.

In the question and answer session that followed, Mr. Alex Shalaby responded to questions posted by the audience regarding the expected return on their investments in Canada, their current and future planned market share, the Canadian market versus other European markets they already operate in and the reaction of the Canadian media towards the launching of Egyptian company in the Canada.