Malta, Huawei plan on opening a joint innovation centre

Parliamentary secretary for competitiveness José Herrera and Huawei Italia CEO Edward Chan have 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.

In a statement, Huawei said the 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 Malta Enterprise 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 said.

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.

Herrera described Huawei’s interest as a great achievement for the 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.

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.

Edward Chan, CEO of Huawei Italia, commented: “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.”