By Ahmed Salam, an expert on Chinese affairs and Former Media Advisor at the Egyptian Embassy in China
As I follow what is happening in Egypt, under the leadership and guidance of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and his insistence to restore Egypt to the position she deserves in all fields in general, and in the field of communications and information technology in particular, I had a certain memory.
President El Sisi always stresses the importance of the ICT sector as an essential element for development, while I remembered a visit, organized by Beijing University, during my study of the multimedia diploma in 1998, to the Chinese city of Shenzhen, a major industrial city in southern China near Hong Kong, located on an area of 1.5 million square meters.
The visit included a number of companies and factories contributing to the rapid growth of China, including one of the local landline production companies at that time, Huawei, which was founded in 1987, and was keen to improve and advance itself after it was importing the equipments from the West.
The success of the company was reacting to a clear strategy set by the Chinese government in the 1980s to develop telecommunications infrastructure throughout the country, in line with a crucial decision for self-reliance and reduce the role of Western companies in communications.
This strategy implies the establishment of a number of local companies capable of manufacturing and developing communication equipment and tools.
During the visit, the company official explained the meaning of the word ‘Huawei’ in the Chinese language. He said that it consists of two sections, "Hua", meaning "flower", (but contemporarily it means: China), and the second part “Wei” means “Great achievement, and thus Huawei's literal translation is “the great achievement of China”.
Huawei is one of the first research and development oriented companies dedicated to the the fifth generation network, with more than $ 600 million invested by 2018. By the end of 2013, the company has joined more than 170 international organizations that set standards for technology. The fifth generation of wireless communications technology offers faster gigabit speeds and stronger communications. Based on this technology, Internet of things, virtual reality applications, smart communities, and self-driving cars, among others, will achieve their goal and will have a tremendous impact on people's lives.
The company started with very little capital of no more than US $ 3,500 and increased its research and development investments until it manufactured its own technology. By 1990, the team had 55 employees in R&D.
In 1996, the Chinese government adopted serious policies to support and encourage local technology companies and to reduce the use of competitive Western products. This was a milestone in Huawei's history. The company then achieved remarkable successes not only locally but also internationally. In January 2017, after the company intensified its interest in research and development of technology, the company topped the list of patents in the European Patent Office.
In 2018, its brand value reached 8.4 billion US dollars compared to US $ 7.3 billion in 2017. The company opened more than 500 centers in 45 countries and has plans to fully control the Chinese market. It also aims at opening more than 1,000 stores across China. It entered into new partnerships with thousands of retailers worldwide, as its products are now being sold through more than 70 thousand centers. This all brought its growth rate to count more than 71% in 2018.
These successes achieved by Huawei at the local and global levels, made it now the world’s third largest manufacturer and exporter of smartphones after Samsung and Apple, as it now occupies 5% of the global market sales.
In fact, a review of how the world's expertise in communications, technology and information services has developed - is a reference to learn strengths and weaknesses and help design a roadmap for Egypt's leadership in this field, not only regionally but also globally.
By the end of February 2018, GSMA held the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, an annual global gathering of mobile and related industries. The conference provides a deep tackling of the current and future mobile industry, highlighting specific areas of development as well as the latest technology updates and growth strategies. The gathering is moderated by internationally prominent experts in the areas of entrepreneurship and innovation. The conference program includes lectures, workshops, interactive discussions, pre-arranged meetings with investors and competitions between start-ups.
Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat witnessed the signing ceremony of a memorandum of understanding between Telecom Egypt and Huawei, aiming to achieve a strategic partnership between the two companies in the field of cloud computing - a modern concept in the world of information technology, about offering computer technologies service whenever needed for any kind of computers or smartphones, safely, and cheaply.
Under the agreement, Huawei will create cloud computing through the Telecom Data Center, to be the first cloud computing company in Africa and the Middle East, to be established in Egypt. This agreement is the first of its kind for Telecom Egypt and a breakthrough on the digital transformation path.
According to official sources in the Egyptian company, the cloud computing services do not include government services only but includes services of inpiduals and small and medium enterprises. It provides spaces for data storage and helps to boost the efficiency of work within large companies and institutions.
The agreement came in line with Telecom Egypt's strategy to keep track of technological development by creating a cloud platform capable of meeting the needs of all its customers. It also came in line with national efforts to implement digital transformation strategy, including transforming Egypt into a regional digital center.
The Egyptian participation in the Mobile World Congress also weighed the possibility of cooperating with Huawei in providing specialized training programs in artificial intelligence and smart cities to 4,000 trainees annually. This came during the meetings of the Egyptian minister of Communications, with the vice president of Huawei Technologies International for North Africa, and President of Huawei at Egypt, to discuss the possibility of expanding the company's global business in Egypt through the establishment of a company's software development center.
To sum up, Huawei's model is a successful model in China, and I hope that the government and inpiduals benefit from it, until we reach what we all aspire to. There is no doubt that cooperation between Egypt and Huawei is a step on the right path that should be built upon and extended to other areas of the Chinese experience.
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