Somali president tours Huawei center in Beijing

As part of his visit to China on the sidelines of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo visited Huawei's Beijing Executive Briefing Center on Friday, where he met Yi Xiang, Huawei's senior vice-president.

Farmajo said it is a pleasure to see achievements and accumulated technologies as well as capabilities in the field of information and communications technology, and he looks forward to seeing Huawei contributing to a digitalized Somalia.

He expected Huawei's active involvement in the construction of Somalia by leveraging the power of ICT to contribute to the economic and social development of Somalia.

Yi Xiang said under the leadership of President Farmajo, Somalia has implemented national development plans and achieved rapid economic growth. Huawei has been working on ICT infrastructure in Somalia for many years, building more connectivity between Somali people and between Somalia and the world.

President Farmajo said the development of Somalia has the inherent advantages of strategic location and vast untapped resources. It has developed rapidly in the past few years, and economic and social life has gradually returned to the right track. It has attracted more and more Somalis living overseas to return to work and live there.

He hopes that ICT will play a bigger role in areas such as increased investment attractiveness and improvement of people's lives.

Yi Xiang said in the age of information, ICT has become as important as infrastructure, water and electricity, and that the improvement of connectivity has made it possible for the country to achieve leapfrog development.

Guided by Somalia's National Development Plan for 2017 to 2019, Huawei will put its combination of Somalia's requirements and its advantages in resources, expertise, experience and cases accumulated over the years in the ICT field. Huawei aims to unleash the potential of ICT to drive the country's socioeconomic development and lay a solid foundation for future growth.

After the meeting, Huawei promised to provide ICT talent training program scholarship slots to 30 Somali students for the next three years.

Huawei has been developing communication infrastructure in Somalia since it entered the market in 2004. Working with local operators, Huawei built the country's 3G, 4G and 4.5G networks, and was the first company to provide mobile data services to Somalia.