Egyptian gas
Egypt will begin exporting natural gas to Syria next month after completion of the third phase of a giant $1.2 billion pipeline project signed in 2001 to supply natural gas to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon for 30 years. The first two phases linked Arish in Egypt with Aqaba in 2003, and Aqaba to Amman in 2005. The project will eventually run some 1,200km from Egypt to the Turkish border. Some 900 million cu.m of Egyptian gas will be pumped daily to Syria in the first year, to be eventually increased to 2 billion cu.m. Last month, according to a 2005 deal, Egyptian gas flowed into Israel, carried through an underwater pipeline running 100km from Arish to the Israeli port of Ashkelon. The move is set to irk the powerful Islamist opposition in Egypt. Egypt’s natural gas production in 2007 was 62 billion cu.m. of which 28.8 percent was exported.
Landline auction
Egypt has announced plans to break the monopoly on landline telecom services and auction off the second operator licence next June. Orascom Telecom and Etisalat previously said they would bid for a landline licence, and Saudi Arabia’s Atheeb group plans to lead a consortium to bid. Telecom Egypt owns 48.97 per cent of Vodafone Egypt, which would presumably preclude Vodafone from bidding. Telecommunications was introduced into Egypt 104 years ago through the company which later became the current monopoly, Telecom Egypt.
Ericsson-Etisalat
Ericsson has been selected by Etisalat Misr to expand its mobile network in Egypt through delivering a complete turnkey buildout of the mobile network, including GSM and WCDMA/HSPA radio access equipment, microwave transmission and a core network including Mobile Softswitch, and expanding the Convergent Charging and Billing solution. The turnkey solution includes site acquisition, civil works, supply, installation, testing, commissioning and integration services, and brings Etisalat Misr’s total investment with Ericsson to more than EUR200m.
ICT 2008
Over 350 exhibitors last week participated in this year’s Cairo ICT Trade Fair and Forum at the Cairo International Conference Center. The size of the exhibition, with 60 per cent foreign and Arab participation, increased this year to some 19,000 sq.m. Cairo ICT is the field’s most prominent event in North Africa and the Arab World. This year’s slogan is ‘The world as we know it is now changing’.
First woman ma’zun
An Egyptian court in Zagazig, 120 km north east of Cairo, last Monday appointed a woman as ma’zun to perform and register marriages, the first in Egypt’s history. Amal Selim, 32, was the only woman out of 11 applicants for the job, and alone held a master’s degree. Last April, Egypt appointed 30 women as judges, the largest such group to be appointed since 2003 when President Hosni Mubarak first named a woman judge.
Isis and the weathered cobra
“Isis and the Weathered Cobra”, an exhibition of 144 pieces of Egyptian Pharaonic and Greco-Roman antiquities opened in Mexico City last Thursday and runs till mid-June. Egypt expects to get $1.6 million for the exhibition which some five million people should be visiting. Also this month the “Tutankhamen and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” exhibition will begin at the Vienna-based Art History Museum and will run through December 2012 in eight European and American cities. Egypt will make some $34 million of it.