ICT Collaboration Talks With South Africa

Iran’s Telecoms Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi and his South African counterpart Siyabonga Cwele held talks to promote ties and explored venues to expand partnership in the key ICT sector.

According to the Telecom Ministry website, the two met on September 27 on the sidelines of ITU Telecom World 2017, in Busan, South Korea. Both sides agreed to strengthen ties.

This year’s ITU World was a four-day event organized by the International Telecommunication Union, the UN agency responsible for ICT-related issues.

During the meeting Cwele hailed Iran’s achievements in the ICT sector and called for closer cooperation between the two nations.  

Agreements were also reached regarding joint investments, jointly launching  low earth orbit satellites and collaboration in boosting e-commerce, e-governance, cyber security and postal services.

South African telecom industries have a history of presence in Iran and the country’s MTN mobile operator is active in Iran under the brand name MTN-Irancell.

After President Hassan Rouhani took office in 2013 closer ties with African countries has been a declared foreign policy priority of his government.

During the Koran event the Iranian minister also met with ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao and requested the Geneva-based ITU to help Iran in overcoming the recently-imposed hurdles in the field of telecom technology.

Referring to the recent unprofessional move by Apple Inc, which has removed applications of some two dozen Iranian businesses from its App Store Service, Jahromi urged the ITU to intervene in the framework of its treaties and conventions. Zhao promised to look into the matter.

Jahromi also called on the UN agency to send a team to Iran to evaluate the telecom industry’s performance and share expertise with the relevant Iranian organizations to help propel the sector.