The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has met with the French Ambassador to Egypt Marc Baréty. They discussed enhancing cooperation between the two countries in ICT and attracting French investors to the Egyptian ICT sector. This is in addition to discussing cooperation in other fields, including digital transformation and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The meeting was attended by the CEO of the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) Amr Mahfouz, Assistant ICT Minister for Strategy and Implementation Sherine El-Guindy, Country Director for Egypt of Agence Française de Développement (AFD) Fabio Grazi, and Head of the Economic Mission in Cairo at the French Treasury Michael Oldenburg.

The ICT Minister highlighted cooperation in multiple ICT fields, between Egypt and France, since several French ICT companies are present in the Egyptian market. He also discussed cooperation in digital capacity building, AI, smart cities, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Talaat highlighted that Egypt has offered many incentives to attract more foreign investments to Egypt, aspiring that French companies can increase their investment in the Egyptian ICT sector.

The two sides agreed to hold a forum for French companies in Egypt to review the features of the sector and the promising investment opportunities it includes.

For his part, Baréty stated that he looked forward to activating the declaration of intent between the Egyptian and French governments for cooperation in AI. The declaration was signed in October 2021, during the visit of Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly to Paris.

The meeting also reviewed mechanisms for enhancing cooperation between the two countries in AI and learning from the French experience in implementing the National Strategy for AI. In addition, the two sides discussed supporting training programs at different levels and strengthening cooperation between the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and AFD to provide technical support for digital transformation projects in Egypt.