China's Huawei, one of global leading ICT solution providers, on Wednesday convened its North Africa Strategic Cooperation Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The forum was held for the first time outside Cairo, the headquarters of Huawei in North Africa, with the theme "Collaboration to Win Customer Success."

Ethiopian government officials and Chinese diplomats as well as more than 100 top-level management team members from around 60 international sub-contractors attended the forum at Sheraton International Hotel in Addis Ababa.

Having established its regional headquarters in Cairo, Egypt about 13 years ago, Huawei North Africa has now over 2,000 employees in the region, of whom 70 percent are local employees.

Currently, Huawei is serving hundreds of millions of people in Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Eritrea, Syria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia, Chad, Niger, Senegal, Mali, Cape Verde, Djibouti, and Ethiopia.

Abdulfatah Abdullahi, Ethiopian Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, said on the occasion that the holding of such a forum is quite important for member companies to share experiences and work out a comprehensive strategy towards addressing the various issues in the telecommunication industry.

The minister also noted that the telecommunication sector is one of the areas where big technological advancements are taking place with huge employment opportunities.

"We view Huawei technology as one major foreign development partner, which has established facilities through which Ethiopians are able to access employment opportunities in addition to benefiting from skills development programs and technology transfers," said the minister.

"As Africans with lowest levels of infrastructure investment we need to take an advantage of the benefits of such a company, mainly offering wireless technology to leaping our developmental processes," he noted.

"The contribution Huawei is making to the development efforts of many African countries is very encouraging," he said.





Qin Jian, Deputy Head of Mission of the Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia, stated that the Chinese government is paying great attention to Africa and intends to build mutually beneficial business relationship with African nations.

"Under this background, we have no doubt that the business between African nations and China will yield great success," he said.

In his presentation, William Xi, senior sales manager of Huawei North Africa, revealed that Huawei gained revenues of 35.4 billion U. S. dollars in 2012 and is operating in more than 140 countries with 14 regional headquarters, 16 R&D centers, and 45 training centers.