Egypt secures five new agreements with China to bolster ICT sector

Cairo – September 8, 2024: Among several agreements, worth a total of $1.1 billion, signed at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation on Friday, Egypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) and China signed off on five major memoranda of understanding (MoUs).

Wuhan FiberHome International Technologies will set up a factory in Egypt to produce fiber optic cables, communication terminal devices, and base station antennas.

The facility will produce 1 million core kilometers of fiber, 500,000 communication terminal devices, and 3,000 base station antennas annually.

The agreement also includes establishing an R&D center for optical networks and green transformation technology, along with a training center in partnership with Egypt’s ICT Ministry.

Hengtong Group will build a second factory, worth $15 million, in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone), with 40 percent of the output will be exported to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

This factory will produce fiber optic cables and FTTX network accessories, with an annual output of 3 million kilometers of fiber optic cables.

Hengtong, in partnership with the National Telecommunications Institute, will also launch joint training programs with Telecom Egypt.  

ZTE has committed to producing various telecommunications products locally, including fixed network terminals and optical network distribution products, and will collaborate with ITIDA to establish two training labs, aiming to train up to 1,200 participants over the next three years.

State-owned Tsinghua Unigroup is set to create a technology investment fund with an initial capital of $300 million, with contributions of between 60-70 percent from the company and its subsidiaries. The agreement includes setting up a data center, developing cloud services, and researching electronic chip design and AI applications, particularly for Arabic.  

Huawei Egypt will open the Huawei Egypt Development Center sometime this year, which will focus on local industry solutions, developer training, and building a cloud computing ecosystem. The center aims to train 1,500 developers and certify 500 developers by 2025.