The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has met with the Minister of Posts, Telecommunications and New Information and Communication Technologies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Augustin Maliba, heading a high-level delegation.
The aim was to discuss enhancing cooperation between Egypt and the Congo in a number of ICT areas, the most prominent of which are digital transformation, capacity building, technological innovation, entrepreneurship and postal services.
The meeting was attended by the Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for African Affairs Sherif Eissa; the Congolese Ambassador to Egypt Nduku Booto; the President of DRC Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (ARPTC) Christian Katende; the Executive President of the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) Hossam El-Gamal; the Assistant ICT Minister for Global Information Infrastructure (GII) Mohamed Nasr Eldin; a number of officials from the two ministries; and Benya Chairman Ahmed Mekky.
During the meeting, Talaat stressed the significance of accelerating the attainment of digital transformation in the two countries, given the huge development and economic opportunities it provides. He referred to the pillars of cooperation between the two countries in ICT, within the framework of the friendly ties between them, including cooperation in capacity building, training, transferring the Egyptian experience and technologies, and providing expertise to our brothers in the Congo. This is in addition to cooperating in digital transformation projects, the provision of digital government services and ICT infrastructure, he added.
Talaat said that he looked forward to benefiting from the experiences and success stories that the Congo was able to achieve in ICT. He highlighted that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was eager to join the meeting, which reflects the Egyptian government's keenness, in its various ministries and agencies, to develop and support the ties with the Congo.
For his part, the Congolese Minister stressed the close ties between Egypt and the Congo, adding that there are joint cooperation projects in ICT that could be implemented in a short term. He said that there are investment opportunities in the electronics industry in the Congo, that can contribute to achieving economic development and creating job opportunities for young people.
Maliba highlighted that the Congolese political leadership gives high attention to achieving digital transformation. He ascertained that during the meeting it was agreed on cooperating with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) to leverage the Egyptian expertise to hold and organize a regional digital forum in the Congo. He praised Egypt's efforts to cooperate with the Congo to capitalize on the Egyptian expertise in organizing regional and international conferences online, with the Congo soon to become the chairperson of the African Union (AU).
The meeting discussed strengthening cooperation between Egypt and the Congo in digital transformation, especially with regard to digital government services, including health and education services.
Furthermore, the meeting discussed transferring the Egyptian expertise in cybersecurity and designing specialized training programs to be implemented within the framework of the cooperation between the telecom regulatory authorities in the two countries. This is in addition to providing training programs in different ICT areas through the Information Technology Institute (ITI) and the National Telecommunication Institute (NTI); and encouraging Congolese youth to participate in the African App Launchpad (AAL) presidential initiative.
Moreover, the two sides discussed cooperation in innovation and entrepreneurship through capitalizing on the Egyptian experience in incubation, innovation, entrepreneurship and developing Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and startups; as well as transferring Egypt Post’s expertise in financial inclusion to the Congo, and training Post personnel through the regional postal training center in Cairo, recognized by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) as its accredited center in the Middle East and Africa.
