Egypt seeks to make New Capital its first cashless city

Egypt plans to make the New Administrative Capital the first cashless city in the country, as part of the country’s schemes to support financial inclusion.

Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat met with the vice chairman and president of strategic growth at Mastercard, Michael Froman, to discuss the firms’s investment plans in Egypt in the field of electronic government payments and collections.

During the meeting, Talaat stressed the importance of benefiting from the company’s experiences in order to meet the country’s strategic plans and initiatives for turning into a cashless society.

The minister cited the projects being carried out by the ministry to build a safe and secure technological infrastructure which can support the country’s financial inclusion initiative, in cooperation with Central Bank of Egypt.

The move should encourage e-commerce, as part of plans to make Egypt a regional hub for such cross-world industry and for the mounting global growth for these trade activities, Talaat added.

Froman laid out Mastercard’s plans, aimed at supporting the technological infrastructure in the New Administrative Capital, to meet the government’s aim for it to be the first cashless city in Egypt.

In 2015, Egypt started the construction of the New Administrative Capital 45km east of Cairo, as part of the government’s plan to reduce pressure on the existing overpopulated capital, expand urban areas and develop the nation’s infrastructure.

The New Administrative Capital, which is being built over 714 square kilometres by tens of thousands of workers, will be home to a government housing district, 29 ministries and other state institutions, including the cabinet and parliament buildings, and 20 residential neighbourhoods that can accommodate 6.5 million people.

Source: MENA & Ahram Online