The Canada Egypt Business Council (CEBC) hosted a special event and panel discussion featuring H.E. Eng. Atef Helmy, minister of Communications and Information Technology. Joining at the panel was Dr. Hisham Sanad, Chairman of the Industry Chamber for Communications and Information Technology and Dr. Osman Lotfy, Member of the National Board for Telecommunication Regulatory Authority.

Over 200 distinguished attendees were present at the event from ministers, ambassadors, CEBC members and guests, among whom were H.E. Dr. Ali Beshr, Minister of Local Development and former ministers Dr. Hany Helal, Dr. Ahmed Zaki Badr, Dr. Adly Hussein among other esteemed Ambassadors and members of Egypt business community.

CEBC Chairman, Eng. Motaz Raslan, delivered the opening remarks for the discussion. He started saying that in midst of the polarization represented by competing campaigns, “Tagarod” and “Tamarod”, the economy is the biggest loser. On the subject of the discussion, the Chairman said that ICT is the only sector capable of growing significantly, despite the current political situation. He continued saying that the sector is capable of “leading the production wheel”, because of its potential in a country of Egypt’s size and location.

Raslan then left the floor to H.E. Eng. Atef Helmy, minister of Communications and Information Technology. The minister gave an overview of his ministry’s priorities and strategy for the coming period with regards to the sector. From the onset, he emphasized the role of the private sector in the development of the ICT sector. The minister spoke of major steps taken by the ministry recently with regards to allowing mobile network providers achieve their potential. He mentioned a money transfer service that more than one carrier has started offering to its customers recently, he also mentioned activating the AVL tracking system, which he announced will be available in the markets starting next week.

Minister Helmy pinpointed that despite encountering a setback due to the revolution in outsourcing, Egypt remains one of the leading in the region. He attributed this success to Egypt’s multinational partners, private sector and civil society. He added that the ministry plans a more aggressive growth in the coming period referring also to the inauguration of the second phase of the Maadi Park, which creates thousands of job opportunities for Egyptian youth in outsourcing. The minister also mentioned the launch of EDUEgypt, an educational development Program for Egyptian universities. He also announced the signing of agreements that will allow Egypt to host two of the most reputable ICT conferences in the world. Now that these agreements have been made the conferences will be World Summits on Information Society and the World Telecom Development and will be taking place in Sharm El Skeikh. The Minister highlighted the importance of Egypt’ hosting these events for the sector and the business climate at large.

On PPP, the Minister spoke of several successful partnerships. He cited one taking place between Vodafone and Telecom Egypt, Etisalat and the Postal Authority. He added that the sector has 72% multinational companies’ contribution, with the rest emerging from local companies. The Minister asserted that these partnerships are initiated on a win-win principle. “Transparency is another principle upon which these partnerships take place”, the minister emphasized. He said that the ministry aims at introducing PPPs, where FDI and local investments own 90% of the projects.

The Minister explained that Egypt is the second largest country in the world in terms of submarine cables capacity, giving it the opportunity to become an international internet hub for the world, “To achieve that, we need several ‘pillars’ in place: basic infrastructure elements such as broadband, cloud computing and submarine cables, in addition to information infrastructure and digital content”, Helmy said.

The Minister also tackled a number of objectives and projects planned by the ministry. In terms of projects, he mentioned the technological parks project, which will be established in Aswan, Assiut, Mansoura and Maadi. “The projected growth for next year for the sector is 10%, as compared to this year’s 6%”, he said. In conclusion to his word, the minister expressed his keenness to join similar discussions to make sure that the ministry’s efforts align with the views of stakeholders, such as the Council’s members.

Dr. Osman Lotfy assumed the floor following minister Helmy. Dr. Lotfy said that there has been detraction in fixed communication, as opposed to an exponential boom in mobile communication. He said that the new area of potential revenue generation now is data services in mobile communications. He asserted the importance of building the necessary infrastructure for that adding that this goes hand in hand with removing procedural or legislative obstacles. He said that following to putting in place the infrastructure; the ministry needs to create incentives to encourage the market to produce products for this newly-established realm. Dr. Hisham Sanad on the other hand said that the ministry partners with the private sector in various fields, which is a new and strongly welcome new practice.

The floor was then opened for questions which covered a range of related subjects such as the e-signature implementation, content generation, and vulnerability of internet submarine cables among other subjects. The minister declared that the e-signature implementation is on the top of Ministry’s list, and addressed the attendees’ questions concerning other areas.