Interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb witnessed the signing of a new agreement between the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) and the international companies IBM, Microsoft, Henkel, and Valeo. "The agreements are to contribute to the increase of Egyptian IT exports by around $20m, provide new job opportunities, and make new applications available to export IT services," according to an official statement issued by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. Hussein El-Geretly, the CEO of ITIDA, signed a memorandum of understanding with Khaled Abdel Kader, Microsoft's general manager, that will allow the company to expand its business in Egypt. "The protocol aims to multiply the number of employees during the next three years to serve the regional markets," the ministerial statement read. El-Geretly also signed a memorandum of understanding with IBM's General Manager Amr Talaat. The agreement will allow IBM to offer its expertise to around 100 local software companies in the fields of cloud computing. IBM Egypt will also develop application software that can be used by small and medium businesses. The agreement with Valoe will allow the company to hire 240 Egyptian specialised employees within the next three years. Through ITIDA's agreement with Henkel, the international company will establish a global service centre to be located in Egypt. "The centre is meant to implement the common operations and activities of the company including human resources, customer care services, procurement chain follow-up, preparing reports of sales and market supply, cost supervision, data management, payment and sales orders operations management," the official statement added. Through the three-year protocol, Henkel will offer job opportunities to Egyptian calibres, who will receive their training from ITIDA. Interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb, who was touring Smart Village, was also present during the signing of a number of protocols between the Ministry of Communications and various Egyptian ministries. One agreement between the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Planning and the Ministry of Local Development aims to establish an integrated system for the postal codes.
