Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) has announced that the country has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Development and Reform Commission of the People's Republic of China (NDRC) for cooperation and the exchange of experiences in the ICT sector.

The ministry says the MoU aims to enhance Egyptian-Chinese relations and improve the commercial and industrial technological projects between the two countries for the development of the Silk Road for information linkage.

The NDRC was led by Deputy Director Lin Nianxiu, while Egypt's ICT Minister Yasser ElKady headed the Egyptian delegation.

"NDRC is China's highest governmental authority, delegated by the government for implementing giant ICT projects. This is in addition to its responsibility for the revival of the ancient Silk Road that linking Egypt and China on the commercial and economic levels, and for the development of the Road to keep pace with the digital age and modern technologies and become an information linkage between the two countries," explains the MCIT.

The MoU is aimed at creating a base of e-commerce and investment projects in the areas of information services, and develop cooperation in the field of exchanging technological and industrial experience between the two countries through the City Pairs application, according to the the ICT Ministry.

City Pairs is an initiative to link Egyptian and Chinese cities and in a bid to achieve twinning goals through the use of active ICT applications.

The MoU includes development plans around smart cities, telemedicine, the Internet of things (IoT), broadband internet and cloud computing, the MCIT adds.

"This is in addition to the establishment of an experimental economic cooperation zone of the Silk Road for information linkage between China and Egypt. Moreover, it aims to develop an ecommerce platform to facilitate logistics services and information linkage in relation to trade and information services."