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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 October 2000 Issue No. 503 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 12 - 18 October 2000 Issue No. 503
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Beyond familiesSir- I thoroughly enjoyed Amira Howeidy's profile of Ibrahim El-Moallem (Al-Ahram Weekly, 5-11 October), one of the few articles in the Egyptian press one reads end to end!I was pleased to see how a reputable businessman is embracing the corporate structure versus sticking to the "family business" setup as the only viable way to grow. This is the only way Egyptian corporations will outlive their founding families and become true corporations. More interestingly we are -- in Egypt -- finally realising the importance of "content" (whether music, films, literature etc.) in the "dot.com" age. In advanced markets they label it TMT (telecommunications, media and technology). Since Egypt has one of the most advanced capital markets in the region, Cairo is considered the capital of "Arabic content" and we are not short on skilled IT professionals, it is a golden opportunity we should seize and not let the US and Europe beat us to it. Sherif Samir Sami
Poor connections?Sir- In reference to the article published in Al-Ahram Weekly (5-11 October) with a headline reading "Food, shelter, mobile," I would like to clarify that what has been published on MobiNil's behalf did not exactly abide with the answers sent by e-mail to Mr Tarek Atia on 3 October.First: I made it very clear in the e-mail sent to Mr Atia that the questions were answered by Mr Osman Sultan, president and CEO, and not by me, which means that Mr Sultan's name was the name that should have been published and not mine. Second: The article says that MobiNil has declined to comment on how it plans to handle the increase in its number of subscribers although this question was answered in the e-mail with the following statement: "The network is built for more than a million subscribers and we are adding to our coverage capacity each day." In fact we believe that the published statement has given a completely wrong impression on our reaction to the increase in number of subscribers as declining to comment on such an issue can give the feeling that we are not prepared for this increase which is not at all the case. Third: The article says that MobiNil has estimated that "some 250,000 people have visited the Mobile Fair," although what was stated in the e-mail was that "over" 250,000 have visited the fair till now. Fourth: The article says that the exact number of MobiNil subscribers will be published in the 2nd quarter results, which is wrong, as it was said that it will be published in "the coming quarter results" which means the 3rd quarter results and not the 2nd. The published article has deleted statements made, used different wording from what was stated and has thus given a different impression to how we responded to these questions. I therefore kindly request Al-Ahram Weekly newspaper to publish a corrective statement with the exact wording sent in our responding e-mail. Nelly Abdel-Hamid
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