RIYADH: Etisalat Egypt, a subsidiary of UAE’s Etisalat Group has signed commercial agreements with Telecom Egypt, worth 17 billion Egyptian pounds ($912.5 million) for a period of 10 years, in the areas of infrastructure, availability, and roaming services. Etisalat Egypt also acquired 40 MHz of frequencies in the 2,600 bandwidth TDD technology at the end of 2020 for $325 million, Asharq reported. Etisalat Egypt CEO Hazem Metwally said that his company intends to increase its investments in the country by 15 percent in 2022 due to the movement of the Egyptian pound exchange rate against the US dollar. During the first quarter of this year, Etisalat Egypt said that it would invest between 5 to 5.5 billion Egyptian pounds in 2022 to develop the network and grow its business. The competition in the telecom sector is intensifying amid the high rates of service penetration, with four mobile phone operators including Vodafone Egypt, Orange, Etisalat Egypt, and state-owned Telecom Egypt currently in operation in Egypt. The average price of a mobile minute in Egypt is the cheapest in the Middle East. The exchange rate of the Egyptian pound has fallen by about 15 percent since the first rate hike this year, last March. The Central Bank of Egypt has raised interest rates by 300 basis points since the beginning of the year in an attempt to absorb inflationary pressures in the markets.