Hannover/Cairo, 01 March 2009: Egypt, one of the fastest growing global outsourcing locations will be showcasing its ICT industry at the world’s largest computer exhibition CeBIT, in Hannover, Germany, from March 3-8, 2009. Egypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) will be presenting the advantages of Egypt on Stand D33 in Hall 3. ITIDA will present outsourcing as a viable and cost-effective alternative in the current business climate and show why Egypt is the perfect offshoring destination for companies from Germany and all over the world.
As part of its ongoing efforts to highlight the successes of its IT sector, ITIDA will be joined at CeBIT by a delegation of 17 Egyptian IT-companies including Raya and ITS who will present the innovative products and IT-solutions currently available. ITIDA will also host an Egyptian Night, a networking event for leading IT industry figures, on the night of March 4.
In preparation for CeBIT, H.E. Dr. Tarek Kamel, Minister of communications and Information Technology for Egypt will be attending a business event at the Egyptian Embassy in Berlin on Friday, February 27 to support the cooperation between Egyptian and German companies. Dr. Bernd Pfaffenbach, State Secretary from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics will also attend.
ITIDA’s CEO, Dr. Hazem Y. Abdelazim comments: “Traditionally, Egypt and Germany have strong trade and cultural connections. Egypt is the third-biggest German business partner in the Middle East. Germany currently exports goods worth in excess of 2 billion Euros each year to Egypt. Our goal during CeBIT is to strengthen the bond between our IT industries. We believe that in 2009 many German companies will decide that outsourcing is a positive business model for them and agree that Egypt has a lot to offer.”
During the past 18 months, Egypt managed to attract a considerable number of multi-national companies like SQS, Teleperformance, Valeo, Wipro, and it is home to one of only two Microsoft Innovation Centers worldwide focusing on research and development. Egypt is predicting further growth in 2009, as the country looks to secure its place as a leading outsourcing destination. In 2009, with the issues facing the global economy, increasing numbers of IT companies – both large and small – are looking at outsourcing as a key area to help control costs and reign in spending.
One German company already taking advantage of Egypt’s benefits is SQS. Axel Bartram, managing executive at SQS Software Quality Systems, praises Egypt and ITIDA: “ITIDA provided SQS with valuable, concrete support in founding our subsidiary in Egypt. Company legal forms are nearly identical with those in Germany. It took SQS less than four weeks to found our subsidiary. The costs were very reasonable and transparently itemised.”
Meanwhile, a current survey by Steria Mummert1 shows that the outsourcing potential of German companies is nowhere near being exhausted. In light of the current economic conditions, this potential can be expected to show gain over the course of the upcoming year.
Egypt has been making huge strides in the world of outsourcing. According to Yankee Group2 in the 2008 report Egypt is the Middle East country best equipped to profit from an expected outsourcing boom. The Yankee report was not alone in detailing the virtues of the Egyptian outsourcing industry as Cairo was awarded 7th position in the recent Global Services - Tholons report, which highlighted the top 50 emerging outsourcing cities in 2008.
Egypt was also named the Offshoring Destination of the Year 2008 by the UK’s National Outsourcing Association (NOA) and was recently listed in Gartner’s Top 30 global outsourcing destinations.
1 Steria Mummert, “Models for Success in Outsourcing” published in September 2008
2 Yankee Group, “Can Middle Eastern countries fulfill the ‘Eastern’ promise?” published in July 2008
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Egypt was one of the few Arabic African countries participated in CeBIT this year. With its great pavilion and the 17 companies flew to Hannover, there was lots of great deals. One of them equals US $ 500000.
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