In recent years, the Egyptian government has made significant investments in the digital sector. This substantial commitment testifies to the crucial importance of outsourcing in stimulating Egypt's digital exports and fostering its economic growth.

Egypt’s digital services export sector saw a significant increase in revenues in 2023, reaching $6.2 billion, a 26.5% rise from the previous year’s $4.9 billion, according to the country’s Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology, Amr Talaat.

Speaking to the Egyptian Senate on Monday, Talaat attributed the growth to recent foreign investments, including agreements with 74 international and local firms to hire 60,000 outsourcing experts since November 2022. The government’s efforts to boost the number of self-employed workers in the outsourcing industry to 550,000 also contributed to the positive figures.

The investments are part of the Digital Strategy for the Outsourcing Industry 2022-2026, a government initiative launched in February 2022. The strategy targets four key areas: IT services, business process services, knowledge services, and engineering and R&D.

The initiative aims to triple digital export revenues to nearly $9 billion by 2026 and create over 34,000 jobs by 2025, aligning with the sector’s impressive performance. The sector recorded digital exports of $4.9 billion in fiscal year 2021/2022, a significant increase from the $3.6 billion in fiscal year 2018/2019.

Samira Njoya