African leaders met with Zain CEO Dr Saad Al Barrak to discuss opportunities in accelerating economic growth through the further development of mobile telecoms infrastructure.

A recent research study by the London School of Economics showed that an extra 10 mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country leads to an additional 0.59 percentage points of growth in GDP per person. Other research indicated that for every job created in the mobile telecom sector, up to eight other jobs are created in different sectors of the economy.
Dr Al Barrak met President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania at State House in Dar es Salaam before proceeding to Uganda for the Commonwealth Business Forum (CBF), held from 20 to 22 November, where he also met Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda, and a number of other Africa heads of state, Commonwealth ministers, CEOs of major corporations and other VIPs. His discussions focused on the Zain Group’s commitment and contribution to the African continent as well as the Commonwealth’s African member states’ comparative advantages in areas such as services, information and communications technology, banking and financial services, manufacturing, agriculture, and natural resources.
To date, the  Zain Group is one of the largest and most successful investors on the African continent having invested over $9 billion in mobile telecommunications over the past two and half years. This investment has reaped rewards as its subsidiary Celtel has witnessed an impressive growth in customers from 5 million in mid-2005 to over 24 million now. This customer figure represents two-thirds of Zain’s active customer base of 36.5 million.
During the Commonwealth Business Forum, Dr Al Barrak announced the extension of One Network, the world’s first borderless mobile phone network to 12 African countries. One Network now covers more than 400 million people, close to half of the continent’s population and an area more than twice the size of Europe.
Zain (formerly MTC) was established in 1983.
As of 8 September 2007, Zain became the company’s new corporate master brand name. Currently, the company is present in seven Middle Eastern and 15 sub-Saharan African countries, providing mobile voice and data services to over 36.4 million active individual and business customers (as of September 30, 2007).