BAKU (Azerbaijan), Nov 20 — Malaysia has committed to supporting Palestine's reconstruction, particularly in the area of digital infrastructure and share its experience in telecommunications with South Africa.
Communications Minister Datuk Fahmi Fadzil 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 yesterday.
Fahmi said among the issues raised with Huda were connectivity issues in Palestine, especially in Gaza, and he conveyed that Malaysia is ready to examine several mechanisms to assist the country.
"I will bring several findings back to the Cabinet, discuss them with the Prime Minister and also Wisma Putra to ensure that the support we provide is not only of a technical nature," he said after the meeting, which was held on the sidelines of the World Telecommunication Development Conference 2025 (WTDC-25).
He said Palestine will also be raising a special motion to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) regarding the redefinition of connectivity, and Malaysia will examine the form of support it will provide for that motion.
"He explained that they (Palestine) feel there is a need to redefine connectivity as a humanitarian aspect that should not be targeted by any party in a conflict of war," he said.
Describing the meeting as highly meaningful, Fahmi said he also informed them of the government's intention to provide scholarships for five Palestinian citizens in the fields of network and radio engineering in Malaysia.
In October, Fahmi said the scholarships were intended to help the Palestinian people rebuild their communication networks, which have been destroyed by the bombings of the Israeli Zionist regime, especially in Gaza.
In the meeting with Gungubele, he said the discussion touched upon, among other things, the state visit of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to Malaysia for the 47th Asean Summit and Related Summits in October, and the opportunities for cooperation in the telecommunications sector.
"We see there are several initiatives we have successfully implemented 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," he said.
Both meetings were also attended by the Malaysian Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Ahmad Kamrizamil Mohd Riza; Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission deputy managing director (Regulatory and Corporate) Datuk Zurkarnain Mohd Yasin and Ministry of Communications’ Communications Technology Division secretary, Ahmad Norhad Zahari.
