Econet Global and Liquid Telecom Group Chairman, Mr Strive Masiyiwa

from AHMED MOOLA in Cairo, Egypt
CAIRO – LIQUID Telecom is investing Egypt £8 billion (US$400 million) in the North African country over the next three years to boost Telecom Egypt’s network infrastructure and data centres expansion exercise.

The investment announced at the Africa 2018 Forum follows the completion of Liquid Telecom’s ‘Cape to Cairo’ link.

Liquid Telecom’s investment would enable the company significantly expand its position as a connectivity and cloud solutions provider in North Africa, serving businesses in the region with world-class network and data centre services.

Through its data centre offering, Africa Data Centres (ADC), Liquid
Telecom is facilitating the growth of Africa’s Cloud by providing a
platform for cloud services to be delivered locally in many markets for the first time.

Strive Masiyiwa Group Executive Chairman of Liquid Telecom’s parent company Econet, said the next mission was to complete a link between Cairo, the Egyptian capital, and Dakar, Senegal through Sudan, Chad and Nigeria, as well as the rest of West Africa.

“We have already crossed Africa from East to West through Sudan and Chad,” Masiyiwa said.

“We are at the Nigerian border and we expect to reach Abuja by the end of January in time for the African U Summit. We want to reach Dakar before (Egypt) President El-Sisi finishes his term,” Masiyiwa said.

Following an initial investment of $50m in data centres and cloud
services, Liquid Telecom plans to invest an additional $350m in broadband and financial inclusion initiatives, as well as high capacity data centres.

Masiyiwa signed the historical agreement with Dr Amr Talaat, Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology.

Dr Sahar Nasr, Egyptian Minister of Investment and International
Cooperation, witnessed the occasion.

– CAJ News