After the rise of countries like the Philippines and Poland, it is now Egypt’s turn to fast emerge as the outsourcing destination for It and BPO services. Ranked as one of the best outsourcing destinations by many research analysts like Tholons and AT Kearney recently, Egypt is an attractive destination with a varied language talent pool of Arabic, Spanish, French and English. Cities like Giza and Cairo are acting as near-shoring locations for Europe and the Middle East.

A large number of Indian IT companies have evinced interest in opening delivery centers in the country, and Egypt’s apex IT association (ITIDA) IT Industry Development Agency, is positioning its IT industry as a co-outsourcer for Indian IT companies. According to ITIDA chief executive Dr Hazem Y Abdelazim the IT-BPO industry in Egypt is now establishing itself as an attractive location of global outsourcing.

The country has set itself an ambitious target for increasing its share of the global outsourcing market and aspires to achieve an industry turnover of $1.3 billion in the year 2010. “This sector has managed to maintain a growth rate of 20% CAGR, and has attracted local and foreign investments of more than $8 billion since 2006,” he was quoted in the Economic Times.

'Outsourcing the outsourced' is becoming an increasingly popular concept with Indian IT-BPO companies opening back offices in the Middle East, Europe, America, and even other developing countries in Asia. Interestingly, this kind of outsourcing is not seen as providing a competitive edge to other countries, but rather works as complementing the services already provided by India.

“The cost of talent in the IT sector in Egypt is very competitive to Asian low-cost locations such as India and the Philippines. In 2007-08, the salary for an average IT Programmer in Egypt was $15,671 per year,” said Dr Abdelazim. Also, Egypt provides Indian companies with cheap access to qualified people, infrastructure, language skills, a healthy business environment, quality of living, and favorable government policies.