Egypt has contracted with Samsung to manufacture tablets to be used by the Ministry of Education for educational purposes. The signing ceremony was attended by the Prime Minister, the Minister of Education and Technical Education, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology and officials from the Armed Forces Arming Authority and from Samsung.

The ICT Minister Amr Talaat said that the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) was keen to implant tablet manufacturing in Egypt through attracting the world’s leading companies to build and run tablet factories, transfer expertise and skills, and train local manpower. This comes in light of MCIT presidential mandate to introduce electronics manufacturing in Egypt, within the framework of Egypt Makes Electronics (EME) presidential initiative and given the country’s strong need to use electronics for educational purposes in the coming period.

It is worth mentioning that MCIT was part of a working group for cooperation and coordination. The group included the Ministry of Education and Technical Education, the Ministry of Military Production, the Arab Organization for Industrialization (AOI) and the Armed Forces Arming Authority.

As part of the group, MCIT developed a list of the electronic devices and parts targeted for local manufacturing, on top of which are Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) and lithium-ion batteries. The main roles of the government, the foreign investor and local industrial entities to achieve the highest value of the target revenue, were defined by the group.

After negotiating with first-class manufacturers, efforts resulted in Egypt contracting with Samsung to manufacture tablets in a new Samsung factory that will be built in Beni Suef, with a USD 30 million investment. The factory will create over 500 job opportunities.

Moreover, pursuant to the contract, 1,000 technicians will be trained on the latest technology. Building the new factory is to be completed in March 2022, where the manufacturing process will start.

EME initiative is implemented by MCIT with the aim to make the electronics industry one of the key mainstays of economic growth in Egypt, and a major  contributor to augmenting Egyptian exports, reducing imports of electronics and appliances at the local market, and providing hundreds of thousands of jobs for  highly experienced engineers, technicians and skilled workers.