WATANI International
4 July 2010
IT investment
The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel earlier this month signed agreements in Washington between Egypt’s Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) and Sutherland Technologies, Stream Global, and Invesys.
Sutherland will accordingly launch the company’s first foreign office in Alexandria, providing more than 1,000 jobs for Egyptian IT specialists at the initial stage. It will offer IT services to the company’s clients around the world in French and English. The contract with Stream Global Services will widen the company’s operation in Egypt, increasing the number of Egyptian employees from 800 to 3,400. Invensys will also widen its operations in the Cairo centre by raising its highly qualified staff from 300 to 500, to provide engineering and research services to clients in France, Britain, Italy, North America and Singapore.
Fastest IT growth
Egypt’s spending on Information Technology (IT) will reach USD2.1 billion by 2014, making it one of the fastest growing IT economies in the world, state-run MENA news agency recently reported. According to a research study issued by Business Monitor International, Egypt’s IT spending will grow from USD1.3 billion at a compound annual growth rate of 12 per cent due to the economic recovery, higher incomes and new hardware and software upgrade cycles. Egypt was cited as possessing one of the most established and developed IT infrastructures in the Middle East and North Africa and as a lucrative sector for international companies looking to expand their presence in the region.
First solar plant
Egypt will open its first solar energy plant by the end of this year, Energy Minister Hassan Yunis said. The plant will be among four in the world with a 140-megawatt capacity, he said. Yunis had earlier said the government-run plant south of Cairo would be linked to the national grid as Egypt tries to meet a target of producing 20 percent of its energy needs from renewable sources by the end of 2020. Solar plants use mirrors to heat water to power a steam generator that produces electricity.
Clean energy
The World Bank and the Clean Technology Fund have announced that Egypt will receive USD220 million loan for a transmission line project to bring energy produced by wind farms in the Gulf of Suez to supply Egypt’s growing energy needs. A sum of USD150 million will be provided by the Clean Technology Fund, which is part of the Global Environmental Facility, while the remaining USD70 million will come from the World Bank. The transmission line, once completed, will transmit 800GW of power and the project will create around 200 jobs.
The project will be part of the effort to help Egypt attain its objective of ensuring that 20 per cent of its energy needs are met by renewable sources by 2020.
Supporting farmers
The Egyptian government has earmarked EGP 1.9 billion to ensure that the rates of buying strategic crops from Egyptian farmers are higher than international prices. According to Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali, the move is intended to encourage farmers to cultivate such strategic crops as wheat and yellow maize. The fiscal year 2010-2011, he said, has witnessed the allocation of some EGP600 million for improving irrigation systems across the country; EGP200 million for the maintenance of piers and cleaning up canals, and EGP400 million for new investment in the sector.