The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has received the Congolese Minister of Posts, Telecommunications, New Information and Communication Technologies Augustin Kibassa Maliba and his accompanying delegation.
They discussed enhancing cooperation between Egypt and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in ICTs and leveraging Egypt’s expertise in a number of major projects that Congo is undertaking, especially ICT infrastructure and digital transformation projects.
This comes within the framework of the visit of a high-level Congolese delegation to Egypt, on January 12-16, to explore new avenues of bilateral cooperation between the two countries, at various levels and sectors.
At the beginning of the meeting, Talaat highlighted the distinguished ties between the two countries, and Egypt’s keenness to enhance cooperation with African countries. He presented Egypt’s efforts to achieve transformation into a digital society and sharing its expertise in this field with Congo.
The ICT Minister also underlined the significance of building youth capacity in ICTs, and invited the Congolese Minister to call on the young people in his country to participate in the African App Launchpad (AAL) initiative. AAL was launched by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, with the aim to train 10K young Africans and Egyptians in digital gaming.
Talaat also referred to the establishment of a specialized ICT university in the New Administrative Capital, and a Research and Development (R&D) center for Artificial Intelligence (AI), providing multiple opportunities for the contributions of scholars in this field. He expressed Egypt’s willingness to share its expertise in this field.
Moreover, the ICT Minister stated that Egypt is eager to cooperate in building the capacities of the Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) through providing specialized training programs for Congolese scholars, using Assistive Technology (AT).
For his part, the Congolese Minister underscored his country’s keenness to cooperate with Egypt to digitize government services, as one of the main objectives of the Congolese President and government. He also welcomed exchanging expertise with Egypt in capacity building, and highlighted his country’s keenness to coordinate with Egypt to benefit from the specialized programs it provides through the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT).
Maliba also stated that Congo seeks to develop its infrastructure through establishing a network, connecting all cities in Congo, to be carried out by Fiber Misr company. He added that he looks forward to Egypt sharing its expertise in technology parks, mentioning that Congo has a number of sites that can be utilized in this regard, after developing the infrastructure.
The Congolese Minister stated that his country looks to Egypt as a partner and contributor to the advancement and development of the ICT sector.
Furthermore, the two sides agreed on having a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that includes the proposed areas of cooperation in ICTs. The Congolese Minister also invited the ICT Minister to visit Congo.
