IT
Scan
July
28, 2003
India, China herald new era of IT co-operation
CHINA -- In a first ever IT gathering in China hosted
by NASSCOM, the apex industry association for software
and services companies in India, both countries discussed
possible areas of co-operation in the area of IT.
The landmark event, which was inaugurated by Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, the Prime Minister of India in Shanghai
recently, saw participation from Arun Shourie, union
minister for communications and IT, Yashwant Sinha,
minister for external affairs, government of India,
Han Zheng, mayor of Shanghai, Wu Cheng Lin, chairman
of CCPIT (China Council for the Promotion of International
Trade), Shanghai, with other senior dignitaries from
China and representatives from Indian IT industry.
Delivering the inaugural address at the summit, Vajpayee
said: "India and China have come a long way from
being poor and industrially backward countries to
emerge as leaders in cutting edge technologies, which
drive today's knowledge economy. One of the main objectives
of my visit to China is to impart fresh momentum to
the comprehensive bilateral cooperation, which India
and China are seeking to build. If our economic co-operation
is to break out of the traditional mould, knowledge-based
technologies need to occupy a far more prominent position
in our economic interactions."
The Prime Minister emphasised on the need to work
together to address the challenges of a digital divide,
and to partner in the area of R&D. He reiterated
that the two countries needed to work together to
share experiences in spreading IT education and in
initiating community level low cost computing, home
networking solutions, more efficient use of bandwidth
and e-marketing. He called on the Chinese government
to partner with India on providing the required IT
solutions for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008. He
proposed a joint institutional mechanism between the
two governments to work out modalities.
Vajpayee
underlined that the respective core competencies of
China and India, in hardware and software provided
a natural ground for an effective alliance in the
IT industry. He also stressed that the respective
software industries of both the countries were complementary
since China had a predominant focus on products while
Indian software industry focused more on contract
services and solutions.
Som Mittal, chairman, NASSCOM, said: "Chinese
companies are still evolving project management and
domain skills, which offers potential opportunity
for Indian IT companies to enter into joint ventures
with Chinese IT companies. This will also provide
the opportunity to serve MNC customers of Indian companies
who are operating in the Chinese IT market. Further,
India can engage with China to enhance its manufacturing
base and encourage local integration of hardware products.
This will help bring down the cost significantly,
helps domestic players; especially SMEs provide shorter
sales cycle and faster local availability."
Kiran Karnik, president, NASSCOM, said: "While
India and China are among the largest and the fastest
growing markets for ICT in the region, trade between
the two countries is nominal. India, for instance,
only exports $4.3mn worth of software to China. Therefore,
there is a large untapped opportunity for both countries
to gain from collaboration and co-operation. Indian
companies can tap the Chinese domestic software market,
leverage Chinese talent in the area of chip design
and telecom technology and set up offshore development
centers in China to serve the Japanese market like
wise Chinese can tap the Indian potential in software
service for their advantage."
The
one-day summit was conducted in association with CCPIT
in Shanghai titled "India & China: Challenges
and Opportunities for the IT sector." The NASSCOM
delegation was led by Kiran Karnik, president and
Som Mittal, chairman, NASSCOM, and attracted participation
from a number of Indian IT Services companies including
Tata Consultancy Services, NIIT, Digital Globalsoft,
Zensar Technologies, Mphasis BFL Ltd., Nucleus Software
Exports Ltd., Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computer
Services and Moksha Technologies.
Contact:
NASSCOM
www.nasscom.org
