CAIRO, Jan 27 (MENA) - Minister of Foreign Affairs, Emigration and Egyptian Expatriates Badr Abdelatty lauded the extended cooperation between Egypt and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

The minister's remarks came during his meeting with ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin at the Union's premises in Geneva on Monday, according to a press statement.

Abdelatty expressed Egypt's keenness on engaging in the Union's work mechanisms and activities through its membership in the ITU's Executive Council.

He said that Egypt looks forward to fostering cooperation with the ITU in various sectors in alignment with the Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS): Egypt Vision 2030 and Egypt's Digital Strategy.

Abdelatty reviewed Egypt's sustained efforts to implement the Digital Strategy, and build a digital economy, develop digital infrastructure, and enhance digital transformation, as well as digitizing government services and supporting technological innovation and entrepreneurship.

The meeting also touched on the issue of AI technologies.

In this regard, Abdelatty expressed the Egyptian government’s keenness on cooperating with the United Nations in this important field to benefit from AI applications and innovative solutions to be able to better address challenges to the society.

He further underlined the key steps taken by Egypt to establish institutional frameworks to deal with AI and apply its technologies, via setting up the National Council for Artificial Intelligence in 2019, and the launch of the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in 2021, besides drawing up a second version of the strategy, that will be launched soon.

For her part, the ITU secretary expressed her appreciation of the "Decent Life" initiative, stressing its importance in promoting digitization efforts in various Egyptian villages.

She lauded Egypt's crucial role in the ITU through its 150-year membership of the Union, saying she is looking forward to continuing cooperation with the Egyptian side to shore up national efforts aimed at strengthening the digital infrastructure in the country. (MENA)
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