Egypt: Government to launch IT free zone in SCZONE

Egypt: Government to launch IT free zone in SCZONE

Egypt - A government document titled ‘Strategic Directions for the Egyptian Economy’ reveals the government’s plan to launch a free zone for communications and information technology (IT) in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZONE), along with the submarine cable areas that handle 90% of data traffic between Asia, Europe, and Africa.

The document, which is open for public dialogue, also outlines the government’s goal to boost the production of fibre optic cables by setting up 20 factories, connecting all government buildings with fibre optics, and making Egypt a leading regional hub for fibre optic cable manufacturing to serve the local market and increase exports, especially to Africa.

The government aims to rank Egypt among the top 10 countries worldwide in the cybersecurity index by 2030, up from the top 30 currently. It also targets to place Egypt among the top 30 countries in the Network Readiness Index, up from 73rd in 2022.

The document sets some targets for the IT sector for the next six years. The government plans to raise the contribution of the IT sector to GDP to at least 7%, compared to 3.4% in the fiscal year 2021/2022. It also intends to increase the number of mobile towers to 45,000