CAIRO: The Egyptian government has signed an agreement with Korean technology company Samsung to manufacture educational tablets in the country, part of a government strategy to localize the technology sector.

Samsung had made previous offers to establish a tablet factory in Egypt with investments of about $30 million, which sources say is the company’s estimated investment in the factory that will be set up to manufacture the devices as part of the agreement. The specifications of the device and its selling price will be agreed later.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology held negotiations with international companies to determine the best offers to manufacture tablets locally in Egypt.

Two days ago, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly chaired a meeting to follow up on the localization of the tablet industry in the presence of Minister of Education and Technical Education Tarek Shawky, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat, and Osama Ezzat, chairman of the Armed Forces Authority.

Madbouly had indicated in a prior meeting that manufacturing of the tablets would start as soon as an agreement was reached.

The minister of communications and information technology said it had been agreed that the tablet’s specifications would be updated every two years, with the contract lasting for five years.

Ezzat said the factory would have the capacity to produce up to one million devices annually.