Ambassador of South Korea in Cairo, Hong Jin-Wook, along with Egyptian Minister of Telecommunications Amr Talaat and Minister of Education Tarek Shawki visited the Samsung Electronics factory in Beni Suef on Monday.
During the visit, they toured the manufacturing facility of educational tablet PCs, and exchanged views on how to continue the momentum of bilateral economic cooperation, which has been growing further through the official visit of South Korea President Moon Jae-in on 19-21 January.
Telecommunications Minister Amr Talaat was the Chief of the Mission of Honour accompanying President Moon during his visit and even attended the Korean-Egyptian Business Roundtable on 20 January as the head of Telecommunication Ministry-related industries, which included the Educational Tablet as part of its portfolio.
Ambassador Hong expects bilateral economic cooperation to be elevated through the historical visit of the first Korean President to visit Egypt in 16 years with the last visit being in 2006.
Ambassador Hong stressed that both leaders agreed on enlarging the scope of bilateral economic cooperation within the future cooperation portfolio which also includes ICT, renewable energy, desalination and electric cars manufacture, which are fields beyond the past traditional trade and investment-centric cooperation.
In this regard, he stressed that this visit to the Samsung Electronics factory by the two Ministers was quite meaningful as it was the first follow-up measure of the Korean Presidential visit to Egypt. Ambassador Hong Jin-Wook also stressed that both countries should continue to follow up on the deliverables of the President’s visit.
Minister of Education Tarek Shawki has commended the significance of this project as a milestone for digital equality in Egypt, providing access to sophisticated educational opportunities especially to those in more rural areas and smaller villages. The Minister stated that Egypt is currently studying providing tablet PCs to middle school students as well.
Minister Talaat expressed his wishes to expand the scope of the tablet PC project through maximizing production. The surplus of tablets would be incorporated into higher education and would also 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, a yearly production of 0.7 million tablet PCs, totaling 4.2 million tablet PCs will be provided to the Egyptian government during the period from 2021-2026. These tablet PCs will be provided to Egyptian high school students for free to aid in their education and studies.
Starting this year, a new tablet PC manufacturing facility will be established within the existing TV manufacturing factory. Currently, around 95% of the construction of the tablet PC manufacturing facility is done, mass production is expected to commence soon.
The tablet PC manufacturing factory will be the first of its kind in Africa and the Middle East. These “Made in Egypt” tablets are aimed to be exported to other countries under the cooperation between Korea and Egypt making it a model project of trilateral cooperation between Korea, Egypt and importing countries.
