Egypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) has issued news licenses for local companies to provide e-signature services. The licenses that will be awarded for up to 3 companies will allow them to provide e-signature certificates, e-seal, and time stamp services for both individuals, and businesses.

ITIDA stated that the statement of work will be available at its premise at the smart village starting Wednesday 24th of February till Tuesday 9th of March, for an amount of EGP40k.

The bidders, are to closely view the general and financial regulations and conditions stipulated by the statement of work for registration. For its part, the agency obliges the awarded entities with all substantive and technical conditions and all the regulations specified by the law no.15 for the year 2004 and its executive regulations.

The release of extra e-signature services licenses is one of a series of initiatives and policies led by ITIDA that aim at supporting Egypt’s digital transformation.

ITIDA’s CEO, Amr Mahfouz, commented: “The step comes as a response to the fast development witnessed in the local IT sector and to further enhance Egypt’s digital readiness”. He added “The new licenses will enable spreading high-security e-signature services’ usage to meet the increasing and unprecedented demand across all sectors”.

“Egypt has made great strides on its DX journey thanks to MCIT’s comprehensive Digital Egypt strategy that accelerates the adoption of emerging technologies in almost all aspects of life,” Mahfouz said. “Likewise, we have an ambitious plan to digitize all public services that require a vast expansion of e-signature services nationwide.”

ITIDA stated that the applicant must be a local company working inside Egypt, and meeting all conditions and guarantees mentioned in law number 15 of 2004 and its executive regulations; in addition to providing all necessary and required documents.

Next March, ITIDA will host a series of Q & A sessions to answer all applicants’ queries. After the deadline for bids submission, ITIDA will commence reviewing and evaluating all bids by a committee of specialists and experts, and results will be officially announced afterwards.

ITIDA is committed to awarding the licenses in a period not exceeding 60 days from the date of submitting the license application, and after the submission of all required documents, unless ITIDA furtherly extended this period.

The duration of the licensing is 3 years, to start from the date of the operation permit and the issuance of the license from the Egyptian Root Certificate Authority (Root CA), subject to renewal for another similar period or periods, per the decision of ITIDA.

The e-Signature Law, issued in 2004 and upon which the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) was established, supports Egypt’s e-commerce industry by securing the Internet as a legally viable medium for digital transactions and aims to support digital transformation in all state sectors.

It is worth noting that the executive regulations of the e-signature law have been amended under the decision of the Minister of communications and information technology No. 361 of 2020, to accelerate Egypt’s digital transformation adoption; and the central role of e-signature in developing the efficiency of administrative work; and improving the government services, and adding to Egypt’s competitiveness globally.

In 2020, Egypt was ranked among the top 10 improvers in Roland Berger’s Digital Inclusion Index. The index measures and analyses levels of digital inclusiveness in 82 countries across the globe, based on their scores across four digital inclusion levers: accessibility, affordability, ability, and attitude.