The Egyptian government has opened the first of several Integrated Technology Centres for Citizen Services in Al-Asmarat district in Cairo.

The country's Minister of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and the Minister of Justice opened the new Centre which they say is part of the state's effort to facilitate citizen access to government services through ICT.

The three-story facility is located on an area of 750 square meters, with 34 service points to provide various automated government services to the public.

Yasser ElKady, Minister of Communications and Information Technology told those attending the opening ceremony, among them representatives of the Egyptian National Post Organisation (ENPO), that the centre will process more than 1,000 governmental transactions per day.

"The integrated technology centres for citizen services are designed at the highest level of technology and equipped with all the technological devices to provide postal and community services and civil status services offered by ENPO. This is in addition to providing automated government documentation and real estate publicity services through integrated technological system linked to a number of agencies."

ElKady added that two new technology centres will be opened in Borg Al-Arab and New Assiut technology parks.

"Technology centres provide all integrated postal and community services, such as savings account, pensions, parcels, money transfers and other services offered by ENPO to its customers. This is in addition to civil status services, in cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior, to provide them to citizens through ENPO offices nationwide, including the issuance of birth certificates, family entry, marriage and divorce contracts, death certificates and other civil status different services," reads a statement from the ICT ministry.

Officials said the centres will also provide automated authentication and other public services such as documentation of sale and purchase contracts of cars and property.

"A new set of services will be added to the previous list of services such as supply services, including reviewing and issuing cards and completing, updating or adding data. This is in addition to the future expansion in providing new services such as mortgage services to include submission of applications and enquiries about housing projects, as well as investment services including the establishment of companies. Technology centres will also provide public prosecution services and courts of cassation services," the ministry added.

The collaboration between the ICT and Justice ministries is the latest in the ICT ministry's intergovernmental partnerships. In February discussions took place between the ICT ministry and the Minister of Support and Internal Trade Ali Moslehi on cooperation to accelerate the process of updating citizens' databases.

The two Ministers underscored the possibility of using ENPO outlets to update citizens' data for data cleaning and verification.