Cairo- The Egyptian Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC) has revealed that the country jumped five places to 73rd out of 120 countries on the Inclusive Internet Index for 2021.
The centre reviewed Egypt’s progress on the index, issued by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Egypt is still on the path towards technological development and the implementation of digitisation plans, while it ranked in 4th place in Africa, after South Africa, Morocco, and Kenya.
The index provides a rigorous benchmark of national-level internet inclusion in 120 countries across four categories: availability, affordability, relevance and readiness.
Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat said in a statement yesterday that the improvement in Egypt’s ranking on the Inclusive Internet index reflects government digitisation efforts.
Talaat added that his ministry, through Telecom Egypt, is implementing an integrated plan to improve communications networks and develop IT infrastructure across the country, based on the latest global technologies in this field.
More than LE30 billion was invested in developing communications infrastructure during the past two years, the minister said,
adding that work is underway to implement the third phase of the project, which has contributed to the doubling of Internet speed in Egypt six times over January 2019.
The average fixed Internet speed in Egypt increased to reach 34.8Mbps last December, compared to 6.5Mbps in January 2019.
The 120 countries which have been covered in the report represent 98 per cent of Global GDP and 96 per cent of Global Population.
The index includes 57 sub-indicators, and is based on many global databases such as the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank, the United Nations, the International
Monetary Fund, and UNESCO.