Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif said on 15/11/2009 at the IGF opening that Egypt has successfully gone through the global financial crisis with the least degree of negative impacts.

Egypt's ambitious economic reform program, which started in 2004, has assisted it to continue growth during the crisis at a reasonable 4.7% rate, Nazif said.

The program had also achieved unprecedented growth rates in the three years prior to the crisis, he added.

This has helped the Egyptian economy to weather the crisis, except for some sectors bound by external factors, such as tourism, the Suez Canal and foreign trade.

The forum is held to discuss several crucial issues, including social media and challenges posed by internet governance.

Creating e-content in Egypt has served the needs of millions of Arab internet users, Nazif said at the opening session of the IGF.

Egypt is playing a great role in assuring that cultural diversity is instrumental to internet governance by spreading the Arabic on the internet, he added.

The Prime Minister recalled the Memory of the Arab World Project as one of the pillars that serve this goal.

Challenges facing Egypt in the future include the ability to groom efficient IT and communications experts, he said.

Supporting innovation and small projects and listing them as a priority is also a challenge, he said, adding that Egypt has exerted efforts on expanding research and creativity as part of measures, including technological incubators and research excellence centres.

Launched in 2006, the IGF revolves around Internet's sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development through wide-ranging workshop discussions. It meets annually, with participants from governments, private sector, international organizations, civil society and technical communities.

The previous three versions were held in Athens in 2006, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2007, and in Hyderabad, India in 2008.

On the other hand, Communications and Information Technology Minister Dr. Tarek Kamel said Arabic internet domains will be launched for the first time Monday 16/11/2009.

"Now we can really say that Internet will speak Arabic," Kamel said at the opening of the four-day conference, hours before the launch.

The announcement follows the approval of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to allow internet users to write an entire website address in Chinese, Arabic, Russian and several other scripts.

In a joint press conference with Zukang, the UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, and Markus Kummer, the IGF Executive Coordinator, the minister said Egypt on Monday would apply for the new domain - pronounced ".masr" but written in the Arabic alphabet - making it the first Arab nation to apply for a non-Latin character domain.

Kamel said the fourth annual focused on privacy protection and language diversity.

Addressing the inaugural session, Kamel noted that the Forum, approved by the World Summit on the Information Society, is a global umbrella for the internet-related issues that need international coordination.

Important issues such as access, high-speed Internet in developing countries, intellectual property, and protection of children language diversity as well as combating cyber crimes are among issues to be addressed during the Forum, he said.

Zukang and more than 1,000 representatives from 100 countries took part in the 4-day forum.

That it is due to Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, Chairperson of Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement (SMWIPM), will take part on Wednesday 18/11/2009 in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting that kicked off in Sharm El-Sheikh Sunday 15/11/2009.

Mrs. Mubarak addressed the issue of safe internet usage for youth and children and Egypt's efforts on the subject at a session on 'preparing a new generation in the digital era.'