The National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) held an introductory seminar for the representatives of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce (FEDCOC) of the governorates of Alexandria, Beheira and Marssa Matroh on its mandates and the role it has been playing in monitoring, regulating and governing the telecom market. The seminar was held in Alexandria with the attendance of members and secretaries of the three governorates, heads of Chambers of Commerce and the telecommunication divisions, in addition to more than 50 importers, merchants and owners of sales outlets. This comes in light of the NTRA’s implementation of its duties in governing the telecom market and raising the awareness of various stakeholders and market parties about the significance of enhancement of joint cooperation to execute measures and actions related to the controls of mechanisms implemented for operating in the market.
It should be mentioned that this seminar, which is one of a series of introductory seminars conducted by the NTRA in many Egyptian governorates, aims to explain and elucidate the regulatory and governance frameworks implemented to regulate the import and circulation of telecom devices and sale and purchase of mobile phone lines. These frameworks help control the mechanisms and work processes in the Egyptian market, and intend to ensure the simplification and expedition of businesses. They also maximize the benefits from digital transformation in investment transactions, and eliminate any practices that breach these controls and applicable laws, which, in turn, negatively affect businesses and the quality of services provided in the market.
During the seminar activities, the NTRA highlighted the significance of its new Digital Portal for Import and Licensing Services, that seeks to save efforts and time in services obtainment. This Digital Portal, launched at the beginning of this year, serves more than 5,000 clients (corporates/individuals) dealing with all types of telecom devices covering the Egyptian market needs on an annual basis. In fact, through this Portal all procedures related to obtainment of permits, licenses, customs releases can be taken and finalized, as all NTRA’s services are currently provided online. This has taken place in view of the NTRA’s mission of boosting the State’s strategy in expediting the digital transformation.
Moreover, several panels and discussion sessions were conducted on a number of hot issues: cybercrime, its negative impacts and the means of protection against them, cooperating with the Telecommunications Police Department. They discussed, as well, the expedited construction of towers, in collaboration with relevant municipality councils, due to their positive impact on the quality and deployment of telecom services; in addition to the developed users’ Complaints Tracking and follow-up System, that immensely facilitated the complaint submittal for citizens and ensure that the complaints resolution in a shorter period of time.
During the seminar, the NTRA emphasized that, in addition to the foregoing, it has been carrying out its supervisory and regulatory role in controlling the market, through examining the telecom devices used in the Egyptian market to verify their conformity with the technical specifications approved by the NTRA, or by executing judicial apprehension campaigns.
In this regard, the NTRA has, in cooperation with the Telecommunications Police Department, carried out a series of judicial apprehension campaigns in various Egyptian governorates on sales outlets to ensure their abidance by the procedures and instructions issued by the NTRA, concerning the circulation and sale of noncompliant and unauthorized devices. These campaigns resulted in the apprehension of a huge number of non-conforming telecom devices, that were unlawfully brought into the country, and illegal mobile lines sold at violating stores, in violation of the application law that stipulates the mobile lines sale in the operators’ official points of sale.
The NTRA underscored that holding such introductory seminars comes within the framework of its mission to raise societal awareness by conducting community outreach activities. It mainly aims to ease the commercial transactions in the Egyptian market regarding telecom devices and mobile phone lines in a manner that is not contradictory with the regulatory frameworks and instructions issued by the NTRA, in order to evade any negative phenomena that might influence the quality of services provided.