Al Akhbar, p.22, (1/12/2006)

Egyptian-Indian cooperation in the field of software production

By: Galal Dewidar

At last, the Egyptian Minister of Information Technology visited India on an invitation extended to him several years ago. When I visited India to make an interview with the former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, a number of Indian officials talked with me about the importance of cooperation between India and Egypt in the IT field. They said that there are great potentials to build such cooperation in the Arab region using Egypt's strong ties with the countries of this region.

It is well known that India managed to achieve a wide leap in the field of software production and it has got hundreds of thousands of experts in this field. There is information that Indian IT exports reached $ 8 billion four years ago and it is expected to reach $ 12 billion.

Therefore, cooperation in this field will be very beneficial to Egypt that is looking forward to increasing its modest revenues of software production that do not suit its great potentials.

I hope that the visit conducted by Dr. Kamel to India would break the ice that has shrouded the Egyptian-Indian ties for a quarter of a century for political reasons which are related to the passive Indian stance regarding the attempt of some Arab countries opposing Camp David agreement to oust Egypt from the NAM which it founded in participation with India and Yugoslavia. In recent years, however, some Indian investors implemented industrial projects in Egypt and the trade exchange increased in recent years; this might lead to restoring the golden age of the Egyptian-Indian ties.

There is no doubt that the success of the talks of the Egyptian Minister of Telecommunications would provide great opportunities for developing the promising IT industry in Egypt, which will help boost our economy and push forward the development process.

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