Shocking exactly no one, Telecom Egypt says it is not planning to sell its stake in Vodafone Egypt (VFE) any time soon: “Vodafone Egypt is a very good investment … A sale would only be considered if we reach a critical mass in the mobile market to the extent that we start cannibalizing on such investment,” Senior IR Director Sarah Shabayek tells Bloomberg in an interview, stopping short of getting into specifics. The state-run fixed-line monopoly holds a 45% stake in Vodafone Egypt, which had raised questions about conflict of interest after TE launched its own mobile phone service last year, putting it in direct competition with VFE. Shabayek brushed off the concerns, saying that there is no conflict since TE is “not privy to [Vodafone’s] plans during board meetings.”

So what’s next for TE? Shabayek said that TE intends to focus on growing its network of mobile subscribers and increasing its share of the market to as much as 15% by 2022, from 2% currently. TE also “wants its own network to cover 50% of the data traffic of its clients this year and is working to secure a USD 13 bn facility from a local banking consortium in order to finance network infrastructure upgrades.