With uncertainty looming large in Egypt?s political transition, India?s top notch IT services exporter Wipro said that it would not ramp up its delivery centre in Giza, the country?s third largest city. Wipro’s development centre, set up in 2007, currently employs 130 people. The firm had plans to more than double workforce to 300 by the year-end.
An executive from the firm said Wipro would not ramp up the team in Egypt till such time it had clarity on whether incentives offered by the previous regime would continue. ?We are not sure if the Egypt government support to the IT industry would continue. I am a bit cautious,? senior VP and business head of Wipro Infotech Anand Sankaran said. ?We will wait and watch how things pan out over there,? he added.
Ever since the series of protests started earlier in 2011 leading to the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, analysts and rating agencies have been warning investors about the country’s risky fiscal position and economic performance. Market watchers said Egypt was perhaps oversold as an outsourcing destination.
Wipro, Sankaran said, became interested in Egypt after the country’s previous regime wooed the Indian IT industry with top class incentives.
?They gave us the entire infrastructure pretty much free of cost. The IT infrastructure came free. The government was also willing to fund the salary of people recruited for a certain period of time ? till such time they were under training,? he noted.
Wipro Infotech is the India-Middle East-Africa business of Wipro and accounts for $1.6 billion in revenues. While the firm is just about trying to crack the African market, it has been using Egypt to service customers in the MiddleEast and continental Europe ? Egypt has a good French speaking population.