Egypt recognized as primary location for IT business

Minister of Communication and Information Technology Yasser el Kadi said Egypt has been recognized as a primary location for information technology and communication business worldwide especially after the launching of the G4 mobile service. 

In statements to MENA on the fringe of his participation at 37th GITEX Technology Week held here from October 8 to 12, the minister said Egypt's participation in this year's exhibition is different in view of the promising projects which have already attracted various world companies, citing the IT projects in Borg el Arab, Assiut as well as the electronics factory in Assiut. 

Egypt is represented at the exhibition by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology along with the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA).

Egypt's IT agency supports the participation of the ICT local companies for the twelfth time in a row with 20 hi-tech companies exhibiting under the newly branded Egyptian pavilion “Time for Egypt” at Sheikh Saeed Hall in addition to 6 promising start-ups that takes up residence at the world's fastest-growing startup event, GITEX Future Stars. 

The exhibiting companies offers a range of services and solutions in the areas of multilingual voice and non-voice BPO services, software development, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), cloud computing, systems integration, Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) solutions, smart tourism solutions and Point of Sale (POS) software.

The minister also said Egypt’s ICT sector has emerged and performed outstandingly driving the country’s economic growth with an exceptional annual growth rate of 12.5%, an export volume of USD 1.87 billion per year, 90,000 direct offshoring jobs and 3.2% contribution to the country’s GDP. 

The sector is currently embarking on fresh investments and a series of expansion plans of existing global IT companies that have already recognized Egypt’s potential and invested in it, added the minister

The IT/BPO industry is already a big business in the UAE AND the Gulf at large and Egypt dominates and topsup the MEA region’s offshore services locations according to A.T. Kearney’s 2017 Global Services Location Index (GSLI), he explained.

Due to its unique advantages, multi-talented workforce, lower labor costs than traditional outsourcing destinations like India and China, Egypt has recently received a number of global acknowledgments and high rankings by leading consultancy firms recognizing it as one of the primary locations in the EMEA region for outsourcing, shared services and captive centers in 2017, according to the minister.

Egypt has been constantly developing its business environment for both local and foreign investors, the minister said. In 2016, the government has embarked upon a number of flagship projects to developing science and tech parks across tier-2 cites and encouraging the local design and manufacturing of electronics in a move that boosts the ICT industry and reinforces Egypt’s prominence as one of the leading offshoring destinations in the world, he added.

According to the latest statistics of ITIDA’s 2016 cash-rebate program on the Egyptian ICT exports, the United Arab Emirates appeared the first and came as the largest importer of Egypt’s ICT service providers; representing 66% of total exports to the Gulf region. The released data shows that UAE's top imported services from the Egyptian companies are BPO, software/ applications development, followed byintegrated solutions, and information systems. 

For the past years, GITEX has been offering a unique opportunity for the Egyptian companies to showcase their latest solutions and technologies and penetrate one of the world’s fastest-growing regions that resulted in numerous investment deals and contracts at a total value of $2.1m in the last year participation only.

Source: MENA