The General Satellite Corporation makes the next step towards entering the African market

The General Satellite Corporation representatives took part in the International Parliamentary Conference and Business Forum "Russia - Africa" held in Moscow on June 15-16 this year after participating in the largest regional conference SatCom Africa 2010 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The event was held under the aegis of the State Duma with the support of Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Council of the Federation, Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), Embassies and consulates of African countries in Moscow, the representatives of large and medium businesses. It was the first such event in the history of Russian-African relations.

39 countries of Africa were represented at the conference. Among the African participants were members of national assemblies, speakers of pan-African and national parliaments, ministers of various industries, chief executives of many large companies. Russia was represented by the members of the State Duma headed by Speaker Boris Gryzlov, also by Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov, the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of the Federation Alexander Torshin, CCI leadership, representatives of the ministries of Economic Development and of Education and Science and, the last but not the least, largest Russian companies did not stand aside too.

The General Satellite presented at the business forum its projects of formation of satellite TV operator (DTH) in Africa and of switching of African terrestrial TV broadcasting into digital format. Large proportion of African population still do not have access to TV broadcasting at all and the projects are designed to ensure the availability of modern television even in the most remote communities. The initiatives of General Satellite were presented during the Forum to the Speaker of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov, the members of the State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs and to participants from Africa.

Cutting edge digital broadcasting technologies, presented by the Corporation, attracted a lot of interest from parliamentarians, diplomats and business representatives from African countries. Control systems middleware (CSMW) for operator functioning by the General Satellite may greatly broaden the scope of what television can do, it helps to ensure information security of a country, allows to implement some e-government functions, to make more effective use of telemedicine and distance education, to issue a public warning in case of emergency and much more.

Foreign Broadcasting Projects Department of The General Satellite Corporation will continue to develop the contacts established during the event in order to react proactively to a numerous opportunities opening on the African continent.