- The Egyptian Market Witnesses an Increase of Job Opportunities  Reaching 41% in International Outsourcing Companies and 18% in Local Companies

- Dr. Salem Meets With Egyptian ICT Companies Leaders to Discuss the Means to Raise the Demand on IT Projects on local, regional and international levels
 
The minister of Communications and Information Technology, Dr. Mohamed Salem, announced that the preliminary results of the economic performance of the ICT sector indicate a significant development during the first quarter of 2011-2012. This is due to the fact that the number of newly established ICT companies increased to 65.

Moreover, ICT growth rates at constant prices reached 3% compared to 2.3% during the previous quarter. Therefore, ICT sector ranks the second after the Suez Canal sector, knowing that it has achieved this high level of performance despite of the instability of the Egyptian economy.

It is expected that the ICT sector contribution to GDP will reach about 4% by the end of the fiscal year 2011-2012.

This announcement came within the framework of the meeting that gathered Dr. Mohamed Salem with the leaders and heads of international IT companies operating in the Egyptian market in the field of outsourcing and exporting IT services.

During the meeting, Dr. Salem discussed several issues such as the means to expand these companies’ investments in the Egyptian market through cooperation in implementing the Ministry’s strategy axes.

The strategy, aiming at pumping more investments, is based on 3 main pillars which are the investment in ICT infrastructure, exportation of IT and outsourcing services and expansion in the technological zones.

They also discussed the means to activate the National Broadband Plan of “eMisr” services which is considered as one of the axes of investment in infrastructure. In the same context, the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA) and Telecom Egypt displayed the main pillars of the plan. The investments related to this plan are expected to reach about EGP 14.4 billion in 2015.

Dr. Mohamed Salem held a meeting with the heads of major ICT companies in Egypt. The meeting was attended by MCIT leaders. During this meeting, participants discussed the means of boosting the demand for IT projects on the national, regional and international levels. They also tackled the challenges facing the national companies.

More important issues were discussed during the meeting such as creating new ways to attract foreign investments in addition to expand existing investments, as well as discussing a number of priorities required during the current stage. On top of these priorities come the payment of the companies’ dues with the government and the increase of IT projects issued by the government.

MCIT strategy for the coming period focuses on the African market. A plan is currently being developed in collaboration with IT companies to access the markets of the African countries. This plan aims to identify the targeted markets during 2012 including Uganda, Ethiopia and other Nile Basin countries as MCIT gives high priority to this issue at the moment.

The plan also embraces sending a number of trade missions of major and small national companies to the African markets which will be identified, in addition to a number of projects to be undertaken by the Egyptian companies in collaboration with the African companies.

Furthermore, a number of cooperation agreements were signed between the ICT sector in Egypt and those in the listed African countries to coordinate about the implementation of the plan. This step comes to gain the support of the Egyptian and African governments.

Regarding the implementation mechanisms of the above-mentioned projects which can be developed to increase the projects locally, the key challenges facing the increase of the projects were identified as the lack of fund allocated to the IT projects on the State level.

Minister of Communications and Information Technology pointed out to the importance of the private sector role at this phase. In this context, the possibility of assigning the private sector to fund the projects was also discussed during the meeting.

His Excellency, Dr. Mohamed Salem, decided that this mechanism will be studied from the legal point of view. Then, a committee will be formed of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) and the companies to identify a number of national projects to be undertaken in the next period.