Chinese ICT vendor Huawei has announced that it is in talks to strengthen its position in Egypt and expand cooperation with the country as a Huawei’s representative and chairwoman Sun Yafang paid an official visit to President of Egypt Abdul Fattah el-Sisi. Both parties discussed the future closer collaboration in areas such as communications networks and ICT construction.
Huawei began its operations in Egypt 15 years ago and since that it has managed to build recognition across the communications sector. However, the company is now watching new business opportunities such as future participation in key ICT projects in the country, it says. Huawei has also established strong relations with the local educational institutions and plans to foster these relationships with a launch of a new talent development programme “Seeds for the Future” in 2015 under which it will bring Egyptians students and young engineers to its headquarters in China for training.
Over the years, Huawei has created a significant number of jobs in Egypt, with 700 local people being directly employed by the company and further 2,000 through indirect jobs. In the future it plans to continue setting up its training centres in partnership with Egyptian higher education institutes, it says.
“We’ve long recognised the importance of Egypt in our globalisation drive, regarding the nation as a regional hub. We set up the headquarters of our Northern Africa Regional Office in Egypt in 1999. Later, we established multiple centres of expertise in Egypt, including our Middle East and Northern Africa Training Centre, Technical Assistance Centre and Application and Software Research Base. In the future, we’ll also share the experience we’ve gained from Egypt regarding ICT planning, construction, and cooperation with other parts of the world,” says Sun Yafang.
“We appreciate the constant investment of leading high-tech companies such as Huawei. We welcome Huawei to continue enhancing the national communications networks’ coverage for the country, and to help Egypt improve the informationization of its government and public utilities,” comments President Sisi.