Distinguished guests, Minister Yousry El-Gamal, Ambassador Scobey, dear friend Omar Mohanna, ladies and gentleman: It is really an honor to join you today on the celebration of a successful year of the AmCham. It’s a habit to meet with the AmCham team annually. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, they organized for the ICT community successful events in Washington, DC and New York, as well as in California.

I’m glad to be today one of the speakers in their annual gathering and, indeed, this reflects the partnership between Egypt and the US. Within the next couple of minutes, I will share with you the ICT’s strategies and the role of the ICT sector in our overall socioeconomic development agenda in Egypt.

I will try to give some focus as well to the Egyptian-US partnership and talk about further challenges that we face in this sector together, with all the colleagues and the stakeholders that are present today.

The ICT sector is playing a pivotal role in the overall socioeconomic development in Egypt. Egypt enjoys, as we all know, an economic reform program that has been quite successful, according to all macroeconomic indicators. The growth exceeds seven percent annually in GDP and we see that our exports, non-oil exports, are growing by a factor of more than 30-percent annually and the government proceeds are increasing year after year.

Indeed, the ICT sector has been one of the sectors playing a catalyst role in the overall development of the economy. And I will try to share with you some of the highlights of this role in the next couple of minutes.

I will talk about the ICT strategy in Egypt 2007-2010 and about three main pillars. Privatization and private sector involvement in this sector as a first pillar; the second pillar will be about ICT for development with a special focus on education and health, and the third pillar is the ICT sector development program. And, indeed, also I will try to highlight the opportunity for partnership on an Egyptian-US basis and as well the challenges that we are facing together.

The ICT sector has been undergoing a reform program since Prime Minister Nazif, at that time the first Minister of Communication and ICT and Dr. Ebeid’s cabinet back in 1999. And many people who are present with us today have participated in the overall development and the reform of this sector.

We have worked on the reform of the sector legally, technically, as well as on business terms. Indeed this has been reflecting positively on the overall growth of the sector that has exceeded 20-percent within the last couple of years. It is contributing to the overall GDP growth that I have mentioned exceeds seven percent.

And the ICT sector has been transformed from a sector that was looking for subsidy and donation from the donor organization to a sector that is really a net contributor to the overall treasury.

Dr. Youssef Boutros Ghali should have been with us, but I think that I am one of the few ministers that is really helping him in his endeavor in attracting new revenues for the Egyptian treasury and for the public proceeds, and I think that due to the overall reform program that took place within the last couple of years we were able to reach that.

Just to share with you a couple of numbers. This sector has contributed by over LE 28 billion just in the last two and half years from the IPO of Telecom Egypt, from the sale of the third mobile license, and from the 3G licenses has been awarded to existing incumbent operators Mobinil as well as Vodafone.

This is definitely an achievement that we are very proud of in the sector and this has been really one of the rewards for the overall reform process and privatization process that has occurred in a balanced and quite a phased approach. I believe that this is a message that privatization and deregulation, when managed in a phased and balanced approach really pays off to all players, including the public treasury, including the consumers that are getting new services and last but not least the ventures and the businesses.

The companies, for the companies, the mobile operators as well as Telecom Egypt, and the ISPs, their revenues are growing by 30 percent and more. This is a reward that we are very proud of in the ICT sector.

For the consumers, we see that Egypt enjoys one of the [fastest] growth rates in mobile penetration in the last couple of years. We are still in some months adding one million subscribers a month, and in the DSL business, 25,000 households are connected to the DSL monthly. And we see a growth in the overall penetration of the Internet and international connectivity by more than 20-percent annually.

Again, ladies and gentleman, and we were hosting earlier this month, Africa Telecom of the ITU here in Egypt, we really find a recognition and a confirmation that Egypt is really playing a pivotal role in the growth of the ITC sector in North Africa as well as in the whole Middle East.

Indeed, this reflects really the outcome, the positive outcome of the overall reform process that took place in this sector. It’s always very encouraging to share the outcomes of the reforms with members from the non-IT community. It’s encouraging because it’s quite important for us while managing and reforming this process to share this result and to see how other people from outside this sector see us.

It’s always also important for the people working in this sector to see directly their contribution in the overall socioeconomic development agenda of the government because we are not just working in an island in our Smart Village. No, the ICT sector is contributing, as I have mentioned, to the overall development agenda of the government.

It is growing positively and it is playing its share and contribution to drive the economy forward. The ICT sector has been a role model for the reform and privatization for other sectors. It is based on a free market economy and we take as well other aspects, social aspects, such as universal services into the agenda during the reform process.

The Internet revolution, for example, has been realized from day one as part of the overall reform agenda that has a social impact and that has universal service aspects and obligations.

The government did not hesitate through the telecommunications regulatory authority and through the commitment of Telecom Egypt and the private ISPs to make really Internet access as one of the cheapest and one the most available and affordable worldwide.

Today we have DSL connectivity that starts at eight dollars a month even if it is limited in speed but it is really expanding the outreach of the internet access to villages and to rural areas, not to mention how important is the Internet for our community and for children and for our society.

So the sector is moving, developing, but as I have mentioned, also taking care of its social commitments and universal service commitments to achieve the overall plan of reform and development.

Let me also share with you our next pillar about ICT for development and with a special focus on education and health. Just two weeks ago, together and under the auspices of Mrs. Mubarak, we have been celebrating the outcomes of one of the initiatives that really reflects public-private partnerships genuinely.

We were also honored to have Mrs. Laura Bush participating with us in presenting the results of the Egyptian Education Initiative. The Egyptian Education Initiative is a genuine partnership between players from the government represented by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology as well as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education.

And very dear players to our hearts, multinationals, with especially a U.S. focus: Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, IBM, HP, Oracle and many others from the Egyptian private sector have helped us to really finalize the overall framework of the Egyptian Education Initiative in a successful way.

In two years, since we started in May 2006, we have been able to connect 2,000 schools in the preparatory age of 12 to 15. It’s not only about broadband connectivity, but it’s about a partnership where we have trained together more than 180 Egyptian teachers in the summer of 2006 and the summer of 2007, where specifically Microsoft and Intel have played a wonderful role.

We are proud, in front of the rest of the world, during the World Economic Forum to present to our guests the outcome and the results of the Egyptian Education Initiative that really reflects Egyptian-US friendship in a genuine way and really reflects what we mean about corporate social responsibility and about public private partnership.

Another successful example presented about communication and information technology for development has been healthcare services using ICT. And another example of partnership between the Egyptian government and USAID has been presented to Mrs. Mubarak and Mrs. Bush about breast cancer treatment.

I think while we are talking today about expanding our health services to the rest of the community we have two examples that really reflect how ICT can help to provide better services to our citizens in Egypt.

I would also like to share with you the third pillar of our overall strategy 2007-2010 which is related to ICT industry development. We have all discovered that ICT is not only a catalyst for development but it is an industry by itself that is growing worldwide and Egypt can really have a good share in this growing industry.

A couple of years ago we started a partnership again with our multinationals in using Egypt as a hub for exporting services to our neighboring countries. And it worked. We started with Microsoft, Oracle, Intel and IBM and several other players and it worked successfully where we have created out of Egypt really a platform for exporting services to neighboring countries.

Just to share with you some examples. IBM has their technology development center with 500 Egyptian engineers working in localization and urbanization for software and products for IBM. Cisco has their E-Learning Competencies Center at Smart Village that is working nationwide with several stakeholders from NGOs on lifelong learning. Oracle has their Global Products Support Center with 400 or 500 engineers. Microsoft has also their Global and Regional Support Center at the Smart Village exporting services to the neighboring countries. Microsoft has established its Innovation Center that is directly linked to Redmond here also in Egypt.

I was glad to receive Craig Mundie a couple of weeks ago, when he has expressed that it is becoming one of the most successful innovation centers worldwide. And they’re all using Egyptian talents. Egyptian talents that have studied in public universities as well as private universities in Egypt and that are really utilizing their know-how to serve the neighboring countries and the rest of the world.

I’m glad that the ICT community is really giving an example to others sectors how business processing outsourcing and knowledge process outsourcing happen successfully. But I see the opportunity to invite other players from the ICT sector to help us in this endeavor because this plan really helps the Egyptian economy. It creates jobs and it creates value for the economy. ICT enabled services to really expand to medical services to financial services, marketing services and other service sin other sectors and other disciplines.

The government is providing a full package of incentives starting with excellent infrastructure, excellent connectivity with affordable and very competitive prices and as well, training and investment in human resources development programs in order to make sure that our workforce is really competitive and according to the expectations that the rest of the world is looking for.

I am again seizing this opportunity and inviting several players from all over the world to partner with IDA, our Industry Development Agency, to establish call centers in Egypt, technical support centers in Egypt, remote services centers in Egypt, online services, development centers in Egypt, and again we see that the market is growing rapidly worldwide and Egypt really deserves to take its right share of this market.

The talent pool is available in Egypt. Egypt has a quarter of a million graduates from university each year. I’m not claiming that they are all ready for competition, but I think with the right investment we can do together, we’ll make sure that we add to their talents the right entrepreneurial skills as well as the right language skills.

The Egyptian population by nature is a multilingual population. And this is one of our differential advantages that we really have in Egypt. You’ll find English, you’ll find French, you’ll find German, you’ll find Italian and Spanish and even our Arabic dialect is well understood in the neighboring countries.

Again, our community has a wonderful opportunity for partnering and for utilizing the human capital that exists in Egypt to compete with the rest of the world. It’s an opportunity that we look to our friends in the US, whether in the government or the private sector, to help us really utilize this opportunity to leapfrog our economy and create thousands of jobs for our Egyptian youngsters.

This is a direct employment opportunity but also an indirect employment opportunity, and Egypt has added a couple thousand jobs just within the last six or seven months by attracting new players coming in the outsourcing and off-shoring business.

Teleperformance is an example, CITM from India is an example, Wipro from India is an example. Why are the Indian companies coming and investing in Egypt when everybody before was assuming Egypt was competing with India? Because the business opportunity worldwide for BPO [business process outsourcing] and KPO [knowledge process outsoursing] is really booming very fast.

So even India realizes that investment in Egypt provides companies with a differential advantage and we are happy and we welcome them in Egypt as long as they hire Egyptian talent and Egyptian engineers and use them to export the services to the neighboring countries. Another formula of cooperation and partnership that I wouldn’t have thought of a couple of years ago, ladies and gentleman, that would take place in 2007 and 2008, but it happened because the overall knowledge economy is becoming global and is moving very fast toward more and more globalization worldwide.

Let me also, ladies and gentleman, share with you some challenges we need to be facing together in the next couple of years. It’s not only about growth, it’s not only about employment, it’s not only about additional value added services to our consumers and it’s not only about income to the public treasury. But we have serious challenges that need to be taken care or in the next couple of years.

The first one is related to human resources. Last week, or two weeks ago, during the World Economic Forum, there was a session that talked about mobile talent and indeed the workforce is becoming global. Workforce without boundaries, and Egypt needs to make sure that it is ready with the right human resources in multi disciplines in order to compete.

And I think we need to invest in the university curricula as well as in training the graduates on a larger scale to make sure that they are competitive according to the overall chances that exist and opportunities that exist on the overall agenda.

It is clear to everybody that in several developed countries the world is facing a shortage of workforce and skills force. It is not just happening in the ICT sector, but it’s happening everywhere. McKinsey shared with us a couple of weeks ago stating that, even Japan and Germany will suffer, in the next couple of years in human resources if they want to keep their economic growth and their GDP growth at the current level. And we all know that there are issues relating to demographics within the populations of Europe and other places of the world.

So the solution is remote services, online services, and I think between the southern part of the Mediterranean and the northern part of the Mediterranean, and due to the reasons I have mentioned, we have an excellent opportunity for partnership. Technology is helping us. Information is becoming ubiquitous and everywhere. The bandwidth is becoming more and more cost effective and there are some people talking about even ‘zero cost’ bandwidth in 2015 or 2017.

So this is not going to be the obstacle, but the obstacle is really human resources development and making sure that we really train our talent pools according to the world-class standards in order to compete with the rest of the world. Also innovation is everywhere, ladies and gentleman, it’s not limited anymore to any single geographic location and I don’t need to travel to the rest of the world to be innovative.

Today, using the Internet and using the platforms of information that we all have I can still be innovative in my own home country. And we see examples in Southeast Asia and we see examples in Egypt and we see examples in North Africa and this forces us really to implement more and more effort and put more and more investment into making us more mobile and more competitive.

The second big challenge I wanted to share with you, ladies and gentleman, is related to cyber security. The world is changing and we start now to hear more and more as we are becoming more global about new effects that we did not have even five or six years ago. We start to hear about cyber terrorism; we start to hear about digital identity theft; we start to hear about money laundering on the internet; we start to hear more and more about child pornography and child misuse on the internet. And I think the world today is moving more and more towards a new framework for partnership and cooperation to tackle these issues.

We in Egypt cannot isolate ourselves from what’s going on in the rest of the world in these important topics. We have to engage ourselves in these discussions. Egypt, by nature, is not an exporter of cyber crime but Egypt could be subject to cyber crime while the world is becoming more and more open and more and more meshed.

And we insist in keeping our younger generation to be closer, networking and engaging with the rest of the world. But we can’t do this anymore, without thinking about several [issues], that need to be tackled, and need to be discussed openly in the society. I was talking to Ambassador Margaret Scobey a couple of days ago during her visit to the Smart Village that we really need a stronger dialogue between Egypt and the US on a government level when it comes to cyber security. Cyber security is about protecting our critical information infrastructure.

I want to remind the community about the incident that happened about fiber cuts on the 30th of January earlier this year and the effect that has made nationwide. On that day everyone realized how important the Internet, voice over IP, as well as connectivity, were to us during our business processes, as well as several other reasons. We need to make sure that we are able to protect this critical information infrastructure and be part of the global dialogue that happens on this important issue.

The world is forming something called IMPACT - International Multi-Stakeholder Partnership for Cyber Terrorism. I’m really inviting everybody from the ICT sector, and from the non-ICT sector to be looking at this important issue because it will be more and more facing our developers within the next couple of years.

The third challenge is related to more focus toward using ICT for development. Today, the Arabic content is very little on the Internet. It is only contributing to 0.5 percent of the overall content nationwide. I think that together with the global players in content development we need to make sure that the Arabic content is well represented for our younger population and our younger generation in the Arab world and outside the Arab world.

The Arabic speaking population is around maybe five or six percent of the overall world population, but as I have mentioned the overall content is less than 0.5 percent, half a percent. It looks clearly to all of us, ladies and gentleman, that there is some mismatch and we need to make sure that we put our cultural heritage and our culture that we are very proud of on the internet and make it available to the youngsters to keep the cultural identity of this population.

We urge our younger generation to connect with the rest of the world and to interact with the rest of the world, but we want them as well to aware of the cultural identity and the language identity of this population.

And this is the responsibility of the whole society – NGOs, as well as multinationals, and the national private sector, as well as the government. It’s not about one single ministry, but it’s about an activity and endeavor of all of us. This will help us also to reflect positively to the convergence that is happening between media and ICT.

We have all experienced couple of years ago, ten years ago, the convergence between software and telecom and today it’s one sector. It’s happening with the media very rapidly and even in Egypt we find internet service providers broadcasting services on the Internet and broadcasting TV and radio channels the net. This will happen more and more because technology is paving the way in this direction.

But we need to make sure that we are ready with the regulatory frameworks and business partnerships worldwide to make sure that we put our content, our Arabic content, and our cultural heritage, really, online.

I just wanted to share with you, ladies and gentleman, a couple of thoughts about the development in the sector and the impact of the ICT sector in the overall socioeconomic agenda in Egypt and about some of the challenges where we are really becoming more and more global and more and more meshed with the rest of the world, and we all need to be aware of and we need to invest more and more efforts in order to make sure that we keep the growth and really utilize this growth for the overall development of the Egyptian community

Thank you again, ladies and gentleman, for listening to me. Thank you, Omar, for inviting me, and I would like to thank everyone and each of you for being here today. Thank you, ladies and gentleman.