Jul. 12--The Government of Bahrain and Cisco Systems, the world's leading supplier of networking solutions for the internet, signed an agreement under which the company will offer advisory and technical services to all ministries and government agencies in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Shaikh Ahmed Bin Ateyatallah Al Khalifa, Minister of Cabinet Affairs, recently met with Mr. Duncan Mitchell, Vice President of Cisco Systems for the emerging markets in the Middle East, to discuss cooperation and exchange of expertise between Bahrain and the world's leading technology provider.

The signing is considered a culmination of the meeting which took place in March between Shaikh Ahmed bin Ateyatallah Al Khalifa and Mr. Duncan Mitchell in which they discussed various cooperative and knowledge exchange mechanisms between the Kingdom and the world's leading technology provider.

The agreement was signed after Cisco's local partners, Al Moayyed International Group and Gulf Business Machines (GBM), the Authorized Technology Provider of Cisco's TelePresence solutions, won the public tender fulfilling the terms of the agreement on the local level. The agreement , considered to be the first if its kind in the region, will also serve as a template for Cisco in future agreements with governments across the globe.

Shaikh Ahmed Bin Ateyatallah Al Khalifa described the agreement as a leading step toward the electronic integration of the public sector establishments within the strategy of the Bahrain e-Government Authority, noting that all government agencies will benefit from Cisco's leading ICT experience to support their infrastructure projects, helping to strengthen the national economy and create employment opportunities for Bahrainis.

He further stated that, as part of Vision 2030, the Government of Bahrain seeks to increase the efficiency of government bodies and streamline processes in order to save money and effort and improve customer service. This agreement will help these agencies save millions of dinars as the prices of services offered through this deal will be much lower than market prices for the same services.

"This method is in line with the Government's policy towards unified procurement of repetitive goods because each of the hundreds of individual procurement tenders issued annually requires 6 to 12 months of preparation and refinement and involves a large number of staff, technical experts, and administrators," continued Shaikh Ahmed bin Ateyatallah Al Khalifa.