By: Mahmoud Hafez, Mona Ismail and Mohamed Zein Eddin
Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat and Minister of Education and Technical Education Tarek Shawki on Monday toured the newly established tablet factory, one of the Samsung factories complex in Beni Sueif governorate.
The LE500 million factory is part of government strategy to localise technology and the manufacture of educational tablets within the presidential initiative ‘Egypt Manufactures Electronics’.
The initiative aims to promote the design and manufacture of electronics through increasing the locally-made components in electronics and the size of their exports in Egypt, Talaat said.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) is keen to create an enabling environment for the development of electronics industry and support of research and development activities in this industry, Talaat added.
Governor of Beni Sueif Mohamed Hany Ghoneim accompanied the ministers during the tour, together with Hong Jin-wook, the South Korean Ambassador in Cairo.
The factory offers 500 jobs and training for 1,000 technicians.
The pilot operation of the factory, the first in the Middle East, will be in March, while actual production will start during May. More than 700,000 tablets will be produced by June 2022.
The project is also part of the state efforts to attract foreign investment and establish global partnerships in order to strengthen local industry, Talaat said.
Last March, Egypt signed an agreement with Samsung for a factory in Beni Sueif with a $30 million investment to manufacture tablets for secondary school students.
Every tablet will bear the legend ‘Made in Egypt’, celebrating the partnership between the government and the global company in charge of implementing the digital transformation project in government education.
The MCIT aims to make the electronics industry one of the mainstays of economic growth in Egypt, Talaat said, adding that the project is aimed at reducing electronics imports and creating jobs for engineers, technicians and skilled workers.
Minister of Education Tarek Shawki said that the state has invested a lot of money and efforts in developing education, according to directives of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to become an Egyptian society that learns, thinks and innovates.
The minister said that the project to manufacture tablets and laptops locally represents a basic pillar to start manufacturing advanced electronic devices in the Egyptian market to meet the needs of the local demand and export to regional and global outlets.
Talaat has expressed his desire to expand the scope of the tablet PC project through maximising production. The surplus of tablets would be incorporated into higher education and would serve to boost Egypt’s electronic exports.
According to Samsung Electronics, based on the contract concluded in March 2021 between Samsung Electronics and the Ministry of Education, 4.2 million tablet PCs will be supplied to the Egyptian government in the period 2021-2026. These tablet PCs will be provided to Egyptian high school students free of charge.
Starting this year, a new tablet PC manufacturing facility will be established within the existing TV manufacturing factory, the Minister Talaat said.
