India IT firms target Egypt
Thursday 12 February 2009 - Merième Addou, AfricaNews reporter in Rabat, Morocco
Many Indian IT companies have announced plans to open centres in Egypt. The Indian IT Software and Services sector revenues are expected to reach USD$60 billion by end of 2009.
A lot of Indian firms re-opening back offices in the Middle East, Europe, America, and even other developing countries in Asia. Indian and are now looking to outsource the outsourced.
However, the Middle East and Africa region remains particularly attractive due to its low costs, especially Egypt, where the cost of talent in the IT sector is very competitive to Asian low-cost locations such as India and the Philippines. In 2007-08, the salary for an average IT Programmer in Egypt was $15,671 per year.
The region is also gathering interest among European and American countries for direct outsourcing because of its geographical proximity. A number of Indian companies are opening service delivery centers in Cairo whilst others are actively participating with the Egyptian government in training university graduates to acquire the proper set of skills needed to work in the BPO industry.
The IT-BPO industry in Egypt is growing. It is now establishing itself as an attractive location of global outsourcing. The country set itself an ambitious target for increasing its share of the global outsourcing market and aspires to achieve an industry turnover of $1.3 billion in the year 2010. This sector has managed to maintain a growth rate of 20% CAGR, and has attracted local and foreign investments of more than $8 billion since 2006.
The Egyptian government has taken the development of world class infrastructure for information and communication technology (ICT) very seriously. Therefore, it embarked on the Smart Village near Cairo. Currently this state-of-the-art technology park provides facilities for over 20,000 people to work in the IT outsourcing industry. Additional Smart Villages are being planned for Alexandria and Damietta and the Maadi Contact Center Park in Cairo, for the BPO sector, will be up and running in 2012 and will be home to 45,000 people.
Many Indian IT companies have announced plans to open centres in Egypt. The Indian IT Software and Services sector revenues are expected to reach USD$60 billion by end of 2009.
A lot of Indian firms re-opening back offices in the Middle East, Europe, America, and even other developing countries in Asia. Indian and are now looking to outsource the outsourced.
However, the Middle East and Africa region remains particularly attractive due to its low costs, especially Egypt, where the cost of talent in the IT sector is very competitive to Asian low-cost locations such as India and the Philippines. In 2007-08, the salary for an average IT Programmer in Egypt was $15,671 per year.
The region is also gathering interest among European and American countries for direct outsourcing because of its geographical proximity. A number of Indian companies are opening service delivery centers in Cairo whilst others are actively participating with the Egyptian government in training university graduates to acquire the proper set of skills needed to work in the BPO industry.
The IT-BPO industry in Egypt is growing. It is now establishing itself as an attractive location of global outsourcing. The country set itself an ambitious target for increasing its share of the global outsourcing market and aspires to achieve an industry turnover of $1.3 billion in the year 2010. This sector has managed to maintain a growth rate of 20% CAGR, and has attracted local and foreign investments of more than $8 billion since 2006.
The Egyptian government has taken the development of world class infrastructure for information and communication technology (ICT) very seriously. Therefore, it embarked on the Smart Village near Cairo. Currently this state-of-the-art technology park provides facilities for over 20,000 people to work in the IT outsourcing industry. Additional Smart Villages are being planned for Alexandria and Damietta and the Maadi Contact Center Park in Cairo, for the BPO sector, will be up and running in 2012 and will be home to 45,000 people.