China and Afghanistan commits to strengthen cooperation in ICT
On Sunday 28th February, 2016 a diplomatic mission of the Chinese Embassy met the Minister of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) at his office. During the visit, the Chinese side emphasized on the need of further cooperation in ICT sector between the two countries, and officially invited Mr. Abdur-Razaq Vahidi to pay an official visit to China and meet with his counterpart and the Chinese Mobile Network Operators(MNOs).
The Afghan MCIT Minister, thanked the Chinese overall and encompassing economic and technical supports, and requested them to support Afghanistan in areas such as regional connectivity, capacity building and long-term academic partnership. He added: “As per the international studies, we have major connection gaps in the region. Having considered the strategic partnership between the two countries, connectivity should be improved. If we connect with China, it will encourage central Asian countries to connect with both countries which will be for exploring the regional potentialities.”
The Chinese Ambassador, Mr. Mr. Deng Xijun Supported Mr. Vahidi plan and said: “Thank you Mr. Minister, for giving me a deeper understanding. I understand that if we connect with Afghanistan, our regional connectivity will be better established.”
He asked the Afghan side to include this issue part of the agenda that he is going to discuss with Chinese MNOs and the Minister of Industries and Telecommunication while his visit to China.
In addition, to the aforementioned point, the Afghan Minister, Mr. Vahidi asked the Chinese side to allocate at least 10 Annual Scholarships for Afghan Telecommunication and ICT sector and also, support MCIT toward localizing the Communication technologies and Internet of Things.
The Chinese Ambassador, welcome the Idea and promised to share a list of 10 scholarships later. Regarding the localization of the ICT and Telecom equipment, he said: “We have already discussed your request with some Chinese leading technology companies such as ZTE, HUWAE and others but they have raised their concern about safety and security costs in Afghanistan. In spite of all these, we need to work jointly on creating some sort of industrial partnership.”
Finally, the Afghan Minister and the Chinese diplomatic Mission agreed to work on drafting a technical detailed MOU that will document and elaborate the joint areas for cooperation such as connectivity, localization of technologies, R&D and capacity building.
Also, Mr. Vahidi promised that he will pay a visit to China in late March 2016 and assign a technical team to draft an MoU before his journey.
