Minister of Communications and Information Technology Atef Helmy announced that around 28 cooperation protocols were signed in 2013 with over 30 Egyptian ministries and 16 government bodies, according to an official ministerial statement. The protocols include a total of 163 projects with a budget of EGP 2bn which the minister said would be implemented in the coming years. Helmy explained that the ministry's strategy was aimed at "shifting towards a digital society to keep pace with the global trends, relying on the latest IT and knowledge in order to develop the economic and social systems and reorganise the [production cycle]." This shift, he asserted, would help improve work efficiency. Hesham El Deeb, the director of the IT Infrastructure department at the ministry, said that the sector is aiming to solidify the role of ICT in the fields of health, education and agriculture, among others. The effective use of IT in these fields, he said, would directly and indirectly reflect on the citizens and improve the quality of services offered. Among the projects inaugurated this year was the IT work on the automation of Corporeal Agricultural Land Registry office in Ismailia and the IT upgrade of the Qasr Al-Eini Critical Care Medicine Department.
