CAIRO: A delegation of top Egyptian officials is participating in the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2008's annual meeting in Davos Under the theme "The Power of Collaborative Innovation, the forum opened Wednesday and will take place until Jan. 27. Headed by Gamal Mubarak, Egypt's delegation includes Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros Ghali, Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieldin, Trade and Industry Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid and Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel. More than 2,500 participants from 88 countries are taking part in the five-day meeting, including 27 nation presidents, prime ministers and 113 ministers, the Middle East Quartet Envoy former British prime minister Tony Blair as well as religious scholars, leading journalists and heads of non-governmental organizations. Leading businessmen constitute more than 60 percent of participants, 1,000 of whom are heads of the largest international corporations in the world. This year's forum is based on five conceptual pillars: competing in business while collaborating, addressing economic insecurity, geopolitics, exploring nature's new frontiers and understanding future shifts of values and society. Benefiting from the presence of prominent business leaders, Kamel met with a number of key world ICT leaders on the sidelines of the forum to forge cooperation between their corporations and Egypt. Kamel met Motorola Inc. Chairman Edward J. Zander to explore the company's future investment and expansion plans in the wireless CDMA technology in Egypt. The two also discussed the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority's (NTRA) plans to launch the second landline network as well as pertinent investment opportunities, the ministry said in a statement. Kamel also met Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin to review the current partnership between Vodafone Egypt and Telecom Egypt, the plans of expanding 3G services in the country and the investments in mobile Internet infrastructure, the minister's office told Daily News Egypt. Kamel discussed with CEO and President of Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Jean-Philippe Courtois and Corporate Vice President for Worldwide Public Sector Gerri Elliot the company's investment plans in Egypt and the region. The two sides also reviewed the agreements between the Egyptian government's educational sector and Microsoft in view of facilitating IT usage in Egypt through the spread of PCs in schools. Kamel held a meeting with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Secretary General Hamadoun Touré to discuss the preparations for the ITU Telecom Africa 2008 conference that Egypt is hosting in May. During the meeting with Touré, Kamel stressed the role of the coming Telecom Africa in tackling the most important regional issues related to the sector's development, on top of which is business process outsourcing (BPO).
