By Mohamed Fawzi The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology has called upon public companies in Egypt's outsourcing industry to expand their operations. This came as the ministry seeks to undertake a regional and international media campaign attempting to attract new investment into Maadi Technology Park. Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Atef Helmi, stated that the initial stage of establishing the park was nearing its end as three new technologically equipped buildings constructed on 17,000 metres of land are expected to be leased and occupied by February 2014. He added that between February 2013 and February 2014, eight other new buildings would be built, constructed and leased out to various companies. He added that the Egyptian postal authority had put up EGP 300m in investments in the technology zone that would fund the construction of five buildings, estimated to directly lead to the creation of 5,000 new jobs. Helmi added that plans were underway to construct an addition 27 new buildings in the region, bringing the total number up to 38 by the end of the initial investment period. The region as a whole will be expected to be running at full capacity by 2017. Construction of the region's first building was completed during the first stage of the tech project, in addition to three other buildings opened in June 2010 that currently employ 2,191 specialists. The minister along with the executive president of the Park Mohamed Abd al-Wahab, recently took a tour of the technology park, inspecting a number of call centres and service facilities, such as fire, ambulance and water treatment stations, in addition to an electricity plant. Helmi stressed the need to continue the technology park's media campaign on the local, regional and international levels, in addition to encouraging public companies to expand their operations there, which he hoped would include setting up their headquarters in the region. Muhammad al-Nawawi, Executive President of Telecom Egypt, said that during the minister's visit, 76,000 lines had been repaired that had been damaged during the fire of Maadi's telecom hub. This brought the total number of working lines up to 82,900, and 82.5% of the region's total operating ratio.
