ITIDA Allocates 8 Billion Dollars to Stimulate IT Export
Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) has set August 16 as a deadline for registering in Export IT program, conducted for the third consecutive year.
The program aims at helping Egyptian IT companies to increase its exports of products and services, as well as alleviating the effect of the economic slowdown.
Through this program, IT Egyptian companies are allowed a direct subsidy on their exportations amounting to a maximum of 10% of the added value associated with exportations.
Under the program, the subsidy value of export operations, whose revenues were received by the companies through 2011, will be calculated. The maximum subsidy value mounts to $500 thousands per company for export operations throughout 2011. Companies are granted cash support.
Percentage of direct subsidy, granted in cash for companies, is dependent on the total subsidy amounts for the applicant companies to benefit of this program, estimated to $8 billion.
Moreover, the percentage of the Egyptian ownership of the applicant company should be more than 50% of its capital, on the condition that the Egyptian ownership for this company is direct.
Direct Egyptian ownership means that the ownership structure is possessed by Egyptians whether individuals or companies with the above-mentioned percentage. It also means that joint-stock companies are established according to the Egyptian law. Consequently, companies established abroad and owned by Egyptians are not included in this program.
Furthermore, joint-stock companies registered in the stock market are requested to submit a report from Misr for Central Clearing, Depository and Registry, to clarify the percentage of the Egyptian ownership in the company according to the ownership structure dated December 31, 2012.
Additionally, premises of applicant companies for the program should be located in Egypt.
It is worth noting that there is no minimum or maximum limit for companies’ exports revenues, size or number of employees. All companies meeting the criteria of the program are eligible to participate in this program.
Even if they have participated before in the program, eligible companies should update their data at ITIDA’s website database, and register in the export support program for 2012. Registrations and data completion should be finalized before the deadline set by ITIDA.
Furthermore, required documents to join the program should be fulfilled, among which are: an application form to join the program, financial report and final accounts, income tax report, a recent offprint of the commercial register, tax card and other documents that can be obtained from ITIDA’s website.
ITIDA has set July 8 as the date to commence receiving application forms after registration completion. The deadline to receive required documents is August 16.
In this context, the added value refers to the actual exertion value for the export company. This means that subsidies are not calculated for the total value of the company’s exports, rather for the variations among its export revenues, automated inputs costs and its accessories and software licenses.
Examples for the added value are software products, consulting, training, communication and outsourcing services, software applications, system analysis and IT services.
In recent years, products and services supported by the program for participating companies have varied, among which are developing software products, training services, application development services, consulting services, business system outsourcing services and international and regional support centers.
Moreover, products and services include e-content and communications, call centers, embedded software, as well as IT enabled services, knowing that the export support program doesn’t sustain export processes concerned with hardware services.
In 2010, Export IT program was launched. A number of 68 companies applied to benefit from the program, 57 of which were accepted with a total subsidy of more than 21 million Egyptian pounds.
In 2011, the number of applicant companies was 88, 76 of which succeeded in benefiting from the program, a total of 29 million Egyptian pounds worth of subsidies.
