By Mohamed Aladdin
Yasser El-Qady, CEO of ITIDA, said that the Authority has begun to review the qualifications of all companies that submitted bids for the project, adding that ITIDA plans to announce the winner within three weeks at most.
El-Qady said that three coalitions submitted bids.
The first coalition includes the Arab Organization for Industrialisation, Centra Technologies, SICO, and Better Business, as well as the Taiwanese company GW.
The second coalition includes the Banha Company for Electronic Industries.
The third coalition includes the Arab Company for Computer Manufacturing and several German companies.
The terms of the competition included a condition that the bid include an agreement between all companies within the coalition that defines each company’s role.
The bid needed to include an agreement of support between the primary company and a number a global companies.
ITIDA announced the competition to produce 10,000 tablet computers last May.
The competition is part of the experimental phase of a Ministry of Communications plan to produce 22 million tablet computers domestically.
The terms of the competition stated that the primary company must have at least EGP 5 million in capital while its partners must have at least EGP 500,000.
The terms also stated that the primary company must be capable of “surface-mount technology” manufacturing and must posses an industrial license.