Fixed line licence in 2008 TELECOM Egypt's 126-year monopoly on fixed line phone services is soon to end. The National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA) said it will offer the country's second fixed line licence in January. The 15-year licence will be offered through a public auction and the winner will also be granted a licence to provide WiMax services. The new fixed line operator will start offering its services in early 2009. Being a signatory of the GATT agreement, Egypt has to end all monopolies on telecommunication services, including fixed line and international gateways. The latter is now open for competition with Etisalat Egypt, the third mobile network operator, starting to offer international call services this week. Heavyweight regional telecommunication companies, including Kuwaiti MTC and UAE-based Etisalat, mother company of Etisalat Egypt, have expressed interest in the licence. With a fixed lines penetration rate of less than 20 per cent, the market is believed to have good growth potential. Minister of communication and information technology had initially planned to offer a new fixed line licence in 2003, but the plan was put on the shelf after it said the market is not yet ready for the move. In a related development, NTRA's chairman, Amr Badawi, stressed that the regulatory body will intervene if current negotiations between Telecom Egypt and local mobile network operators to reduce the interconnection fees on calls between fixed line and cellular phones reached a dead end. Press reports quoted Badawi as saying that NTRA might resort to lowering rates by next month. Stable outlook STANDARD and Poor's (S&P) affirmed its sovereign rating for the Egyptian economy maintaining its stable outlook. S&P maintained its ratings for the local currency long-term sovereign credit ratings at BBB. According to a S&P release, ratings are underpinned by "impressive progress" made on a wide-ranging programme of structural reform and steadily improving economic and fiscal management, which has delivered a sustained period of rising economic growth, robust external accounts and a steady improvement in weak public finances. The stable outlook reflects the balance between improvements in Egypt's economic prospects as structural reform progresses and the challenges that remain on the fiscal side, S&P added. The agency said the "stable" outlook it granted to the Egyptian economy in the medium term is due to the need for dealing with the deficit problem. While stressing on the importance of Egypt's improving the public debt levels to maintain the current credit rating, S&P praised efforts to lower the deficit to three per cent of GDP by 2010/2011, compared to 7.5 per cent in 2006/2007. Suez industrial magnet THE GOVERNORATE of Suez is rapidly turning into an industrial hub, with 11 new projects approved by Governor Seifeddin Galal last week. Planned to be established in the Suez Free Zone area, the projects are mainly for vehicle feeding industries, petroleum services and telecommunications. "The new projects will be established at an investment cost of $660 million on 15,000 square metres and are expected to provide at least 450 job opportunities," stated Assem Ragab, chairman of the General Authority of Free Zones and Investment (GAFI). The Suez Free Zone area is currently home to 162 large projects, at an investment cost of $406 billion, and provides 28,000 job opportunities. "We are planning to attract more mega investments into the area," added Ragab. "Priority will be given to intense-labour industries including petroleum services companies, feeding and engineering industries." The GAFI chairman explained that of all the cities on the Suez Canal, Suez is endowed with a unique location, a vital harbour and complete infrastructure which helped turning it into a centre for mega projects. Many heavy investment projects are now operating there, such as iron and steel, fertilisers, oil, textiles and marine equipment facilities.
