Egyptians keen to emulate Ireland's ICT success story

THE DEVELOPMENT of Ireland’s ICT sector over the past 20 years is an example that Egypt wants to follow, according to Dr Tarek Kamel, the Egyptian communications and IT minister.

Dr Kamel led a delegation of government officials, third-level representatives and company directors to Ireland this week in a bid to promote closer collaboration in information and communications technology.

“Ireland has a special status for us because it has been a role model for developing the ICT sector and in putting the ICT sector as a priority for the overall development of the economy,” said Dr Kamel.

Like Ireland, Egypt has successfully attracted foreign direct investment including blue-chip IT multinationals such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Intel. It also has a young, well-educated population: Egypt produces close to 15,000 technology graduates each year.

“As Ireland has been playing a key role on a geographical level as a gateway to Europe, Egypt is playing a similar key role as a gateway to Africa and the Middle East,” said Dr Kamel. “We are here to build partnerships with Ireland at an academic, business and innovation level.”

To that end, the Egyptian delegation established links with Dublin Institute of Technology, Trinity College and UCD. It also held discussions with the Irish Software Association and Ibec.

According to Dr Kamel, the attraction for Irish companies and academic institutions is in emerging ICT markets such as Egypt’s. IT spending in Egypt rose by more than 25 per cent from 2003 to 2007. The government is strongly backing this growth through schemes such as its Egypt PC 2010 initiative which promises a PC for every home.

“You will not find here in Europe ICT growth of around 20 per cent,” said Dr Kamel. “The mobile sector is growing at around 35 to 40 per cent, in spite of the crisis. So this is definitely a business opportunity.”

Specifically, the opportunity includes building technology infrastructure – some 40,000 Egyptian schools need to be connected to broadband – as well as developing content for PCs and mobiles. The delegation was also looking to forge partnerships with Irish companies that can provide IT systems in areas such as healthcare, banking and finance.

Dr Kamel said his government is prepared to offer “a very robust incentive package” to attract inward investors, including low-cost broadband, fully subsidised training for indigenous workers and purpose-built business and technology parks.

“Find me the cheapest fibre links worldwide that connects you to any part of the world and I will match the price,” said Dr Kamel.