Al Ahram, p.3, (16-11-2008)

Prospects of Egyptian-Indian cooperation in IT

By: Ahmed Reda

The IT sector is one of the most important sectors of cooperation between Egypt and India, the world's most advanced country in the ITES sector. The Egyptian-Indian cooperation aims essentially at mutually benefiting from the competitive advantages of both countries.

Understanding the importance of the Egyptian-Indian relation in the IT field depends on knowing the facts about this field, the resources of both countries and the potential of investing this relation which depends on partnership aiming for achieving integrity. India's excellence in this field is shown by the fact that its exports of IT and outsourcing services will amount to about $50 billion by the end of the current year and about $60 billion by the end of 2010. This sector provides about 10 million jobs: 2 million direct jobs for professionals and 8 million indirect jobs.

NASSCOM is the world's largest and most powerful association of its kind. It includes more than 1200 companies, 250 of which are international companies working in US, UK, EU, Japan and China. The revenues of the Indian member countries of NASSCOM account for more than 95% of the total Indian revenues of the IT industry and relevant services.

Over the last two years, Egypt witnessed a noticeable growth in the ICT sector. A.T. Kearney, a major IT consulting company, gave Egypt the 13^th rank among world providers of IT services. A report by the US Yankee Group, issued in August 2008, ranked Egypt as the first Middle East country nominated to benefit from the growth of the world ITES market. Recently, Egypt was named Outsourcing Destination of the Year in a contest by the British National Outsourcing Association.

Some might think that this title might mean that Egypt surpassed India in this field. However, we should know that one of important criteria for granting this title is the upsurge in development achieved by the country during the period 2007-2008. This is the period during which Egypt surpassed all countries nominated for this title.

This growth is based on the potentials Egypt enjoys and its competitive advantages which make it qualified to cooperate with India. Egypt enjoys sufficient human resources, special geographical position, and competitive cost for establishing projects, and government support for investors. All these factors made Egypt a preferred destination for International companies working in the field of information technology. We can say that Egypt's realization for its potentials is combined by a clear-cut plan launched in June 2006 for increasing the exports of IT services to $ 1.1 billion by 2010. The Egyptian plan also includes conducting a periodical review to guarantee its efficiency in dealing with international variables. They aim at developing the Egyptian companies working in this field and attracting international companies to invest in Egypt. Moreover, it aims at developing the skills of Egyptian graduates and providing them with basic skills need to get jobs in this sector.

The guarantee of the development of this sector at high rates is the sufficiency of human resources needed by IT companies. Reviewing the experiences of other countries we found out that one of the major problems facing countries famous for providing such services is that their lack of skilled manpower. The most famous companies specialized in training and qualifying human resources are Indian ones. India gives too much importance to maintain a large number of qualified manpower to work in the IT services sector.

The Egyptian human resources are the cornerstone of promoting Egypt as one of the preferred destinations for IT services companies.

The Egyptian IT sector is full of stories of success that confirm the ability of Egyptian cadres to work according to international standards. International companies working in Egypt hire larger numbers of staff than they expected. "Value", an international company working in the field of software used in auto industries, closed all its research and development centers in Germany, France and Spain and it kept its center it opened in Egypt due to its faith that staff of this center are capable of providing support for its clients with the same efficiency and productivity and at a competitive cost. SQS, the top European company in the field of testing the quality of software, established a center in Egypt and hired 50 Egyptian engineers who speak German. The company was so impressed due to their fluency in the German language and their technical skill that it sent a large number of them to work in its branch in Germany to supervise the projects of its clients in Europe.

Such competitive advantages Egypt enjoys and its clear-cut plan in the Telecommunications and Information Technology sector are among the basic factors on which the Egyptian Indian cooperation is based. At a time when India is distinguished because its IT manpower excel in the English language, Egypt has manpower who speak several languages including English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.

Language diversity is a very important asset for the companies working in the field of outsourcing, as it allows them to offer their service for more clients in different part of the world. In view of these facts, the Indian companies can open customer service centres in Egypt and recruit the Egyptians youth, who speak in different languages and so they can offer services to the maximum number of customers in different regions. Also, Egypt enjoys other competitive factors, such as the low cost and wages, time difference between Egypt and most of the European countries. At the same time, India can benefit from Egypt in attracting a large number of customers and IT companies from the Gulf region.

During the Indian Leadership Forum, which was organized in Bombay last February, an Indian businessman asked the Egyptian officials participating in one of the workshops Egypt organized on the sidelines of the Forum about the investment atmosphere in Egypt, the attendees were surprised when they found another Indian businessman called Ajay Shankar (CEO of the Indian Company Srishti) said, " When I visited Egypt to explore investment opportunities in the country, I found the officials there offering actual facilities and privileges to attract investments. Also, the Egyptians are high professionals in IT sector."

The impression taken by that Indian businessman is based on tangible achievements by Egypt, as there are more than 45.000 Egyptian IT professionals working in the field of software and related services in Egypt. This number will increase after the construction of the special technological area in Maadi. Thus, Egypt will be mostly able to achieve IT revenues of US$ 1.1 by the year 2010.

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