MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita and Abdulsalam Haykal, Syria’s minister of communications and IT, at MWC. (Image supplied by MTN)
MTN Group has moved to formalise its exit from the Middle Eastern country of Syria.
In a statement today, the South African-based telecommunications giant says MTN Group president and CEO Ralph Mupita met with Syrian Arab Republic minister of communications and information technology Abdulsalam Haykal on the sidelines of the MWC event in Barcelona.
It notes that the parties formalised an agreement to regularise MTN’s exit from Syria, with the intention that both sides implement the agreement imminently.
In August 2021, MTN Group announced its decision to abandon the MTN operation in Syria.
At the time, Mupita said: “The group has initiated an exit of Syria, through abandoning the operation, given regulatory actions and demands that make operating in the market untenable. We reserve our rights to seek redress through international legal processes, given the actions of the Syrian authorities that have left us with no other choice than to exit.”
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MTN first announced plans to exit the Middle East in 2020, as part of a strategy to focus on its African operations.
The group finalised its exit from Yemen in 2021 and from Afghanistan in 2024. It is still seeking to exit its 49% investment in Iran, but this has been complicated by US sanctions.
