Information Technology industry development agency (ITIDA) is leading the country's largest delegation of 27 Egyptian IT companies to exhibit at GITEX Dubai 2008, the Middle East's largest technology exhibition from October 19 - 23, 2008.

The size of the delegation highlights the strength of Egypt’s ICT ecosystem which has been pinpointed in recent analyst reports as the world's fastest rising IT outsourcing hotspot.

The Yankee Group in its report titled "Can Middle Eastern countries fulfill the 'Eastern' promise?' published in July 2008 concluded: "Egypt is by far the Middle Eastern country currently best positioned to take advantage of the boom in outsourcing."

With its relatively young population, a multilingual workforce, and a large and burgeoning talent pool of IT professionals, the Egyptian outsourcing sector has received strong government support.

It is projected that the Egyptian outsourcing sector will generate revenue of more than $1 billion by 2010, four times the 2005 revenue.

The World Bank in its annual "Doing Business" report has also recognized the Egyptian reforms.

The country has topped the list of global reformers that are making it easier to do business in two out of the last three years and continues to be the leading regional reformer.

The latest multinational to embrace Egypt is Teleperformance, one of the world's leading providers of outsourced CRM and contact centre services, which has set up a new contact centrer in Cairo that will be home to over 2,500 workstations.

IBM has just signed a deal with the Egyptian government to set up a Nanotechnology research center in Cairo and pledged its support to a number of training and educational initiatives that will cement cooperation between the country and the leading company.