MTC Group announced that it will be participating in the upcoming Free Trade Conference being organized by the American Kuwaiti Alliance under the patronage of the Kuwait’s Minister of Commerce & Industry, HE Abdullah Al-Taweel. The conference will take place on the 4th of June 2005 at Kuwait’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The event will bring together US and Kuwaiti businesses and government officials to discuss the opportunities and challenges of establishing a Free Trade Agreement.
Dr. Saad Al Barrak, Managing Director and Vice Chairman of MTC will be participating and speaking in the Roundtable Discussion - Session II entitled “U.S. – Kuwait TIFA Negotiation Status & Issues”. This stems from the fact that Dr. Saad will delve into the issues that pertain exclusively to the telecommunications industry both in the mobile and fixed arena.
In addition Dr. Al Barrak’s participation is the fruit of efforts to bring together business and government leaders in Kuwait and the US to put forth a holistic integrated vision to opportunities and challenges that will arise during the creation of the free trade agreement between both countries. The session will also look into solutions and alternatives that will speed up the pace of these negotiations in the hope of reaching a final agreement that will enhance the cooperation between both countries.
The conference will furthermore discuss some basic issues which will include Intellectual Property Rights issues, telecommunications, and banking, and the benefits that will be gained by Kuwait on signing this agreement.
The conference which will be held by Kuwait’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry will be attended by high level delegates and speakers from the USA, Jordan, Bahrain, and Singapore giving the conference greater overall significance especially because it discussed one of the most important topics that interests Kuwait.
Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC) was founded in 1983 and today is one of the largest mobile operators the in Middle East and Africa, with more than 9.5 million customers in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and 13 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
MTC is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange.
In September 2002, MTC entered into a Partner Network Agreement with Vodafone, the world's leading mobile community in Kuwait creating MTC Vodafone Kuwait. In 2003 MTC continued its expansion with the acquisition of 96.4% of Fastlink in Jordan.
MTC’s aspirations did not slow down and in 2003 MTC-Vodafone Bahrain was launched with the first 3G/EDGE nationwide network in the world. In 2004 the MTC Atheer service was launched in Southern Iraq, and today covers Baghdad as well.
2004 also witnessed the Government of Lebanon handing over the management of one of the two mobile networks (Mic2) to the MTC Group, which is known now as mtc touch.
Most recently in March of 2005 MTC acquired Celtel International, a Dutch communications network company with major interests in 13 Sub-Saharan African countries, in one of the biggest telecom deals in the Middle east and Africa worth $3.36 billion. The MTC Group now operates in 18 countries. With this deal MTC group has completed its first phase of its 3X3X3 strategy which entails becoming a global operator with more than 15 million customers by 2011. MTC will continue to expand internationally through acquisitions, partnerships and green-field opportunities.
