Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Yasser ElKady has opened Sunday the Chief Information Officer (CIO) Summit 2016 in the presence of a large number of global, regional and local companies. The summit was organised by the International Data Corporation (IDC) that is specialised in providing consulting and IT research services in Cairo. CIO Summit is held in Egypt for the second consecutive year, discussing exploring opportunities of the digital transformation and learning about latest trends and best practices in the world of technology. During the ceremony, the launch of an IDC-affiliated regional research centre in Smart Village was announced, in the presence of representatives from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) and a number of IDC senior officials. The centre includes a number of Egyptian specialised calibres of analysts and consultants. The opening of the centre is under an agreement between ITIDA and IDC which took place during the CIO Summit and was witnessed by the ICT Minister. The agreement was signed by ITIDA CEO Asmaa Hosni and IDC Vice President and Regional Managing Director of IDC Middle East, Turkey and Africa, Jyoti Lalchandani. During a meeting held between ElKady and Lalchandani in February, the idea of inaugurating an office for IDC in Egypt was put forward. MCIT seeks, through ITIDA, to attract foreign direct investment and improve Egypt's competitiveness in this area as an attractive investment location. According to IDC latest projections, the Egyptian ICT market will achieve a growth rate estimated at $8.95 billion in 2016, with an upward revision of about 10.32 billion dollars in 2019. The growth is mostly due to spending on IT services and software packages that will see a compound annual growth rate estimated at about 9 percent over 2019. IDC anticipates that the Egyptian economy enjoys strong growth rates as a result of substantial reforms and further foreign investments under the new government strategy. For his part, ElKady said the opening of IDC Research Centre in Egypt is a positive step, contributing to the expansion of creating new job opportunities for Egyptian calibres highly specialised in the research and consulting areas. It is a clear signal on the evolution of the Egyptian IT sector, considering Egypt an international destination for high value-added services. This is in addition to exporting to many foreign markets including Europe, the Middle East and Africa, he added. ElKady also said that MCIT seeks to take advantage of the return of investor confidence in the sector through implementing a development strategy to establish and spread several technology parks in various governorates, which in turn contribute to improving Egypt's position as a leading country, possessing an attractive location for investments in the ICT field, value added services and electronics design industry. ITIDA and IDC have succeeded in developing and implementing many programs that encourage collaboration among the actors in the Egyptian IT market and integrated system services and solutions providers to expand their investments in target markets. The strategic partnership is based on benefiting from IDC expertise within the framework of ITIDA strategy and initiatives focusing on the target markets and relying on the optimum use of information and data on foreign markets to promote and create opportunities for Egyptian companies and business enterprises in the global markets, in collaboration with the global consultancy firms, including IDC. For his part, Lalchandani said that Egypt's trend towards entering foreign markets and increasing exports is consistent with IDC strategy for investment and growth at the Middle East and Africa level. He added that IDC studied closely the Egyptian ICT market since the mid-nineties and covered all areas of the industry such as infrastructure, software packages, ICT services and markets of services designed for specific sectors. This is in addition to the executive IT programs, launched recently and designed according to the specific requirements of IT experts and pioneers. In light of this expanded and comprehensive coverage, IDC decided to open the Center in Cairo in conjunction with the second CIO Summit, he added, referring to his aspiration to announce the name of the new regional director of the Centre within the next few weeks. The Center is not the first presence of IDC in the Egyptian markets. Over the past few years, IDC supported ITIDA in promoting the IT industry and the export of IT services to the target markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and Africa markets.
