Minister of Communications: - Digital exports increased by 124% over 7 years to reach $7.4 billion.
Dr. Amr Talaat, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, confirmed that the performance indicators of the ICT sector have witnessed a continuous development over 7 years; where the sector has maintained its position as the highest growing sector of the state, achieving growth rates ranging from 14-16%, and its contribution to GDP increased from 3.2% to 6% during the current year; Digital exports also rose by 124% to reach $7.4 billion dollars compared to $3.3 billion in 2018; Explaining the increase in outsourcing exports during 3 years from $2.4 billion in 2022 to $4.8 billion in 2025, and the number of companies operating in this industry in Egypt increased from 90 A company to 240 companies has more than 270 outsourcing services centers.
This came in the speech of Dr. Amr Talaat during the activities of the monthly meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, during which he discussed the vision and apicus of Egypt's digital strategy, and the developments witnessed by the ICT sector over 7 years.
Dr. Amr Talaat explained that Egypt's digital strategy includes 4 main axes, namely promoting digital innovation, developing digital services provided to citizens, driving GDP growth and exports, and creating job opportunities in the digital economy. This is based on two main pillars: digital infrastructure and the supporting legislative environment.
Dr. Amr Talaat stressed the ministry's keenness to increase the number of qualified cadres in the fields of communications and information technology, to implement digital transformation projects, as well as being one of the main factors to attract international companies to establish centers in Egypt, pointing out that the number of trainees doubled annually in technological disciplines 200 times during 7 years to rise from 4,000 trainees in the fiscal year 2018/2019 to 500,000 trainees during the last fiscal year and the target of training 800,000 trainees in the current fiscal year; Pointing out that the digital capacity building strategy includes two main models: formal education and vocational training and aims to keep pace with educational and training programs with the requirements of the labor market.
Dr. Amr Talaat pointed out that the first batch of students of Misr Informatics University, which was established in the new capital within the framework of the vision of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to provide high-quality educational programs, within the framework of an advanced educational environment to prepare and graduate distinguished competencies in the fields of communications and information technology; pointing to the we schools of Applied Technology, which started with one school in 2021 and expanded and reached 27 schools spread in all governorates.
He explained the diversity of mechanisms for providing training programs that include traditional direct training, and training through digital platforms, in addition to expanding the integrated training models that combine study within training and online learning halls; pointing to the Mahra Tech platform, which provides specialized digital training content in many technological fields, stressing the ministry's keenness to build an integrated skills matrix for trainees, including technical, linguistic and personal skills, in addition to self-employment and entrepreneurship skills, as well as focusing on youth rehabilitation programs to join the self-employment market, as well as providing training programs for non-specialists in the field of information technology to help them develop professionally using artificial intelligence; pointing to The Digitopia competition launched by the Ministry with the aim of discovering talents in the fields of digital creativity.
He pointed out that the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence was launched in 2019, which the implementation of its axes contributed to the progress of Egypt's ranking of 46 positions in the government readiness index for artificial intelligence. He added that the second version of the strategy was launched at the beginning of this year and includes 6 axes, namely data, skills, ecosystem, infrastructure, applications, and governance; Stressing that work is being done to build systems using artificial intelligence techniques to improve the efficiency of services, where a system was launched for the early detection of breast cancer, and another to convert the operative text into a written text in court sessions.
Dr. Amr Talat reviewed the most prominent achievements to enhance Egypt's position on the global outsourcing industry map and attract more investments to Egypt; pointing to the signing of agreements last November with 55 international and local companies to expand their investments in Egypt in the field of the outsourcing industry, providing about 75,000 new job opportunities over the next three years, adding that he had already signed agreements with 29 companies in 2022 to expand existing outsourcing centers or establish new centers in Egypt, and aimed to provide 34,000 job opportunities within 3 years; Stressing that this number rose to 60,000 new job opportunities that were implemented until the end of the year 2024.
Dr. Amr Talaat explained that there are 15 brands currently manufacturing mobile phones in Egypt, with a local added value of about 40%, pointing to the increase in production capacity from 3.3 million units during 2024 to 10 million units during 2025.
Dr. Amr Talaat also reviewed the developments of the Egypt Digital Services Platform, explaining that it currently provides 210 government services and the number of users of the platform reached more than 10 million users, pointing out that about 2 million transactions are executed monthly.
Dr. Amr Talaat pointed out that investments worth $6 billion have been injected since 2019 to raise the efficiency of the fixed and mobile Internet network, including $2.7 billion to improve mobile services in addition to $3.3 billion to raise the efficiency of the fixed Internet, which contributed to increasing its average speed by about 16 times to reach 91.3 Mbit/s, to Egypt leading the average fixed Internet speed ranking compared to the 40th place in 2018; Explaining that the second phase of the project includes expanding the deployment of the fiber optic network throughout the Republic, and linking the villages of a decent life of about 4,500 villages with fiber optic cables; pointing out that 5G services and Wi-Fi Calling service have been launched, And the services of the Internet of Things for cars (IoT), as well as the implementation of a system for the governance of marketing calls over the phone; pointing out that Egypt passes through more than 90% of data traffic between Asia and Europe, through 21 international cables, including 6 cables under construction.
He pointed out that within the framework of the policies and legislation governing the ICT sector; the Law on Combating Information Technology Crimes; the Personal Data Protection Law, the Egyptian Charter for Responsible Artificial Intelligence, the Cloud Computing Policy First, and the Open Data Policy were launched.