The Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), part of the Egyptian Ministry of Communications, reported on Thursday a surge in the number of business services and IT jobs offshored to the country, where at least 19 global services providers and leading tech companies have announced their expansion plans in Egypt. In addition, there were four new market entrants established their offices, and R&D centres during the second quarter of the current year alone. Vodafone Intelligent Solutions (VOIS), a subsidiary of Vodafone Group and its partner of choice for talent, technology, and transformation, inaugurated its new office in Alexandria, adding 1,000 new contact centre jobs to serve Vodafone's global customers in both German and English languages. The expansion announcement is not the first of its kind this year. Following the COVID-19 pandemic and the demonstrated resilience the Egyptian ICT sector has shown, a long list of key outsourcing players has already unveiled their expansion plans, including Webhelp, Sutherland, PWC, STMicroelectronics, and many more. "We're excited to see _VOIS expand its footprint in Egypt through the new office in Alexandria; a city with many competitive advantages, untapped and abundant tech talents, and multilingual capabilities," Amr Mahfouz, CEO of ITIDA, said. The geopolitical tension across other service locations has also augmented Egypt's global appeal to investors and encouraged more demand from global enterprises choosing the North African country as their reliable offshoring destination and business services hub. "The current geopolitical scene works in favor of Egypt and guides investors and global service providers toward the country, being an ideal unparalleled offshoring destination and global digital services delivery hub for the EMEA region", Mahfouz added. He encouraged multinational companies to invest in tier 2 cities, where ample opportunities and talent are accessible at a competitive cost. The inauguration of the new office adds to the mutual journey of productive cooperation and constructive partnership between ITIDA and VOIS. "The cooperation with VOIS is one of our outstanding successes in attracting and fostering foreign investment in the IT offshoring business and the IT sector at large," Mahfouz stated. Egypt has witnessed an increase in its appeal to investors since the government launched a new incentive scheme for foreign investments in light of the Digital Egypt Strategy for the Offshoring Industry 2022-2026. The ambitious strategy, spearheaded by the IT Development Agency, propels the sector on a higher growth trajectory. According to Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the local ICT sector has made the highest growth rate of about 16.3 percent among different state sectors during the financial year 2021/2022. Egypt's digital exports hit $4.9 billion in the same period. ITIDA's CEO commended the multilingual capabilities and skills of Egyptian youth working in the outsourcing sector. He noted that the current demand is certainly exceeding supply, adding that one of ITIDA's strategic goals is to invest in developing digital and soft skills, and creating a talent pool that's capable of building the knowledge economy. VOIS Egypt's office serves 14 markets around the world. The company makes annual investments of 3 billion Egyptian pounds in Egypt and exports services worth €145 million. In five years, VOIS aims to inject 18 billion pounds and bring the value of its business in Egypt to €1 billion. In addition, the company targets increasing the size of its team from 8,600 to more than 10,000 employees in its offices across Cairo and Alexandria, making it the second largest in terms of headcount across VOIS' sites in Egypt, India, Hungary, and Romania. The opening of the new office of VOIS underpins Egypt as an attractive investment destination for multinational companies such as Vodafone, which is keen to expand its global delivery business in the country.
