Parliamentary Secretary for Competitiveness and Economic Growth, Jose Herrera, and Edward Chan, CEO of Huawei Italia, signed a joint declaration for a strategic alliance agreement dedicated to the development of Safe City in Malta. The signing ceremony was hosted at CeBIT.
This joint declaration strengthens the already excellent relations between the Government of Malta and Huawei, following a Memorandum of Understanding signed in July 2015 and the opening of Huawei's local office in Malta, presided over by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and facilitated by Investment Envoy in Asia Sai Mizzi Liang.
The declaration for a new cooperation agreement will focus on the establishment of a Joint Innovation Center to develop Safe City solutions for Malta.
Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. With 170 000 employees worldwide, their ICT solutions, products and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world's population.
Huawei currently has over 9 900 staff based in Europe, of whom 1200 are working in research and development with 18 R&D sites located in eight European countries (Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and the UK) and numerous joint innovation centres in partnership with telecom and ICT partners.
It was said that urban safety plays a vital role in protecting people's lives and property, and is the cornerstone of economic growth in modern cities. The new innovation center will leverage on Malta's research talents and on Huawei's best of breed technologies and innovations to develop smart and safe cities solutions that will represent key assets for public administrations to prevent and react to evolving threats. These innovative Safe City, all-in-one, nation-wide safety and surveillance plan, will combine alarm reporting, data transmission, video surveillance, transport management, police scheduling, wired-wireless communications and voice and video conferencing technologies.
Dr Herrera declared the interest of one of the largest companies as Huawei as a great achievement for our country. He reminded that Malta recorded an economic growth of 6.3% in 2015, a figure obtained also thanks to the fact that Malta is a secure country offering stability.
Dr. Herrera pledged the total support of the Maltese Government for the project to become a reality. He also stated that similar projects and initiatives would not be possible if the Government had not agreed the long-term strategic relationship with Huawei which will allow Malta to prosper as a digitally-enabled nation, making citizens' lives better and helping enterprises to flourish.
Mr Chan said, "As a global ICT leader, Huawei is committed to continuously innovate, creating the maximum value for carriers, enterprises, public administrators and consumers. This project is the perfect example of a virtuous collaboration between Public and Private sectors to enable digital inclusion of the population and ultimately to transform cities in smarter and safer places for their citizens to live in."