Egypt Sees Potential to Double the Size of Its Global ITO and Engineering Services Market and Triple Its Global BPO Market

MUMBAI, India, Feb. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Speaking at NASSCOM 2010, His Excellency Mohamed Higazy, Ambassador of Egypt, made a strong case for investment into economies like Egypt that have an abundance of qualified human capital and strong growth potential. He emphasized that the country continues to strengthen its position in the market through a series of successful partnerships.

Speaking about what Egypt can offer companies investing in the country, Mr. Amin Khaireldin, senior advisor and board member of Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) said, "Egypt provides many unique advantages as a location for BPO and ITO to Europe and the Middle East. What sets Egypt as a favorite for investments in the sector include its sizable talent supply, structurally low cost of operations, quality and scalable infrastructure, conducive business environment and proven industry track record."

Hossam Megahad, board member of ITIDA added, "Egypt's concept is proven by the large presence of multinational and major regional companies. There are currently 15,000 direct export oriented professionals, 22,000 for domestic business accounts, over 300,000 active bloggers and over 50,000 indirect jobs are supported by the industry."

Adding to the voice of ITIDA, were industry leaders such as Ramachandra Murty Yadaville, head of marketing at Wipro Egypt who appreciated ITIDA's outstanding support in helping Wipro scale up their staff to 300 people by end of the year; Hari Garg, vice president of CRM global delivery competency at IBM Daksh who added credence to the quality of language and multilingual skills in Egypt to converse in over 22 global languages; Ricardo Langwieder-Gorner, director of business development EMEA at Stream Global Services who highlighted the attractive costs structure of Egypt which is lower compared to India in the BPO sector.

Further support came from Joachim Dold, general manager of SQS Egypt, a company that specializes in software testing; Alla El Khishen, general manager of ECCO, who complemented ITIDA on the support provided to his company that works on inbound and outbound services of the BPO sector and Hassan El-Shawarby, general manager of Raya, who attributed the company's success in company receiving COPC certification and accreditation three years running to the support given by ITIDA.

Egypt has been highly aggressive over the past decade in delivering on major infrastructure, bandwidth, educational and telecommunications projects to drive increased interest in companies looking to establish major global service delivery centers in the country.  

Mr. Amin Khaireldin added, "Egypt is now at the new crossroads of the next stage in the IT revolution. With a long history of innovation, we are a young, energetic country with a population that grew up in the technology world. We have built a nation around technology and Egypt is now a hub for innovation and research, cyber security and cross-border collaboration."  

Currently, companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Vodafone, Orange, Mahindra Satyam, Teleperformance, Wipro, SQS, Valeo, Alcatel among many others all have offices in Egypt's Smart Village, a 600-acre technology business park in Cairo.

Egyptian leadership is also focused on collaborating with companies to advance the penetration of the Internet in Egypt and to get the nation on the forefront of technological developments, while at the same time focused on protecting and supporting its youth in using the Internet as a means of creativity and innovation.  

About ITIDA:

The Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) is a governmental entity affiliated to Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.  It is responsible for growing and developing Egypt's position as a leading global outsourcing location by attracting foreign direct investment to the industry and maximizing the exports of IT services and applications.

Located in the heart of the modern business environment at Smart Village, the six hundred acre business park on the outskirts of Cairo, ITIDA is a self sustainable entity that drives the IT industry in Egypt and raises awareness among the Egyptian people of the benefits and use of ICT to advance socio-economic welfare of the whole community.

About MCIT:

For more information about the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology go to:  www.mcit.gov.eg

SOURCE Information Technology Industry Development Agency