Aiming at increasing IT/ITES exports to 1.1 billion USD by 2010, the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) launched an Export Rebate Program (Export IT) to help Egyptian companies increase their exports from IT products and services and minimize the impact of economic downturn witnessed in the last year. The program aims to benefit exporting Egyptian IT companies and has been designed based on the needs of the industry with the support of the NGOs.

ITIDA’s board headed by H.E. Dr. Tarek Kamel, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, approved the program and confirmed that the rebate will be up to 10% of the value-added on IT-services-software products and services’ exports during 2009.

Dr. Hazem Abdelazim, ITIDA CEO, said “ITIDA held a series of meetings with IT NGOs to identify the priorities and needs of Egyptian IT companies during the global financial crisis and to help alleviate the effects of such a crisis on exporting companies.” “The cash rebate will be up to 10% of the value-added component only which is the actual effort and work done by the exporting company”, he added.

The added-value encompasses software products, consultations, training; IT enabled services, software applications, system analysis, etc... The cash rebate will apply to payments received for exported products or services during the full year of 2009. Companies seeking to benefit from the program should bemembers of the ICT database, Egyptian-owned and headquartered in Egypt with at least 80% of the company payroll based in the country.

Registration deadline for the program is the 31st of January 2010 and all applications will be reviewed by the export rebate committee.