Egypt’s telecoms minister Yasser El-Kady met Thursday with high-level delegation from the National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China (NDRC) headed by the representative of the National Chinese Committee for high-tech industries.

The delegation discussed with the Egyptian minister possibility of establishing an economic partnership between the two countries in communication and information technology sectors.

The meeting comes as part of the objectives of the Chinese delegation’s visit to Egypt between July 19 and 23. It aimed to follow up El-Kady’s visit to China last May.

During the meeting, El-Kady reviewed his ministry’s strategic plan for developing Egyptian ICT sector that reflects the country’s serious intention to establish a competitive national electronics industry based on previous experiences of friend countries. He also asserted Egyptian government’s willingness to create a positive environment to attract both domestic and foreign investments.

The two parties also signed a letter of intent (LoI) on cooperation and partnership in ICT sector. The LoI is to be followed by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be signed later next September on the sidelines of 2016 G20 summit to guide world economic growth. Accordingly, the two sides shall cooperate and place investments in establishing projects like: technology parks, high-speed internet, cloud computing, and others.

NDRC is the entity concerned with implementing electronic projects and ICT giant projects, related to the economic side of the initiative “One Belt, One Road” that aims to establish “the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road”.