AMMAN -- The ICT Association of Jordan (int@j) on Monday said a government decision to establish a company to bid for tenders floated regionally will negatively affect local ICT companies.
The association, which groups 422 firms, said the proposed company will "harm" the work of local companies that have presence in the region and good experience implementing ICT-related projects in the Middle East.
"The government should not compete with the private sector for regional tenders related to ICT projects. Instead, it should open new markets for the local ICT sector," Abed Shamlawi, CEO of int@j, told The Jordan Times on Monday.
Last month, Minister of Information and Communications Technology Bassem Roussan announced that the government will establish a firm, 51 per cent of which will be owned by the government and the rest by private sector companies, to help local companies compete for ICT-related tenders in the region.
At the time, the minister said the company will compete for tenders in the region and when it wins certain tenders it will use smal- and medium-sized local firms to implement the projects, especially since such firms do not have the capability of opening branches abroad and bidding for tenders.
"The government should work on empowering and building the capacity of local ICT companies to prepare them to become exporters," Shamlawi said.
He noted that around 50 per cent of local companies in the ICT sector export to several countries in the region and overseas.
"Spending on ICT-related projects is huge in the Gulf. Jordanian companies have great potential to increase their share of this spending and the government should support them in this regard," Shamlawi said, calling on the government to reconsider the decision.
Annual spending on IT services in the Arab world amounts to about $31 billion, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology.
The association will hold a meeting with the ministry officials next week to discuss mechanisms on how the proposed company can help local ICT companies rather than competing against them abroad, according to Shamlawi.
© Jordan Times 2012
