What benchmarks have been set in terms of government collaboration with the private sector?
A number of strategic benchmarks have been set such as increasing IT exports from $150m to $1.1 billion by 2010, diversifying exports among different IT business lines and providing world class IT-enabled services globally over the next five years by utilising Egypt’s unique combination of European language capabilities, technical proficiency and low wages. The aim is to create more than 35,000 new ICT job opportunities by 2010, increase the foreign direct investment targeting of IT to 10% per year and increase the contribution of IT to GDP from 0.9% to 2%. A number of long-term priorities have also been developed with the assistance of the private sector to cultivate industry growth. These are based around developing infrastructure, literacy, ICT education, investment and employment. Apart from tax and customs reforms, what other initiatives are being implemented to encourage foreign investment in the IT sector? Tax and customs changes to date have included the reduction of capital re
