BAKU (Azerbaijan): Malaysia has committed to supporting Palestine’s reconstruction, particularly in digital infrastructure, and sharing its telecommunications experience with South Africa, says Datuk Fahmi Fadzil (pic).
The Communications Minister said the matter was discussed in a meeting with the Deputy Minister of Telecommunications and Digital Economy for Palestine, Huda Al-Wahidi, and the Deputy Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies of South Africa, Mondli Gungubele, here on Wednesday.
Fahmi said connectivity issues in Palestine, especially in Gaza, were among the issues raised with Huda, adding that Malaysia is ready to examine several mechanisms to assist them.
“I will bring several findings back to the Cabinet and discuss them with the Prime Minister, and also Wisma Putra, to ensure the support we provide is not only of a technical nature,” Fahmi said after the meeting, which was held on the sidelines of the World Telecommunication Development Conference 2025 (WTDC-25), Bernama reported.
He said Palestine will also raise a special motion with the International Telecommunication Union regarding the redefinition of connectivity, and Malaysia will examine the form of support it will provide for that motion.
Describing the meeting as highly meaningful, Fahmi said he also informed them of the government’s intention to provide scholarships for five Palestinians in the fields of network and radio engineering in Malaysia.
In October, Fahmi said the scholarships were intended to help Palestinians rebuild their communication networks, which had been destroyed by the bombings of the Israeli regime, especially in Gaza.
In the meeting with Gungubele, he said the discussion touched upon, among others, the state visit of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to Malaysia for the 47th Asean Summit and Related Summits in October, as well as opportunities for cooperation in the telecommunications sector.
“There are several successful initiatives in Malaysia that we could potentially table for discussions with our counterparts in South Africa.
“I found that they were quite impressed with Malaysia’s ability not only to roll out the 5G network very rapidly, but also to provide very cheap Internet.
“They were rather impressed with these aspects,” Fahmi added.
