British Trade minister calls for Indo-British IT partnership
By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 01 July 2003, 19:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
LONDON: Michael OÂ’ Brien, the British Minister of State for Trade, said that India is a global hub in IT and since India and the UK are natural partners, both the countries should cooperate for mutual benefits. He also approved 60 percent of work permit to Indian workers. "UK companies realize the benefits of outsourcing from India, which has become the preferred global hub for software development and Business Process Outsourcing," O'Brien said in his keynote address at a one-day joint Symposium on "International Business Perspectives of India: 2003 and Beyond" jointly organized by Confederation of Indian Industry, London Stock Exchange and Commonwealth Business Council. Acknowledging that there is a significant growth in bilateral trade between the two countries, trade between the countries has increased by 70 percent since 1993 to $5 billion in 2001, the Minister said. Last year, the Indo-British partnership received tremendous boost with the visit of the British PM, Tony Blair to India, during the CIIÂ’s Partnership Summit. Anand Mahindra, President, CII , in his address ,said that the Indian economy which was based on strong fundamentals had yet to enter the international business consciousness,. India is keen to rectify this state of affairs, he said. Mahindra pointed out IndiaÂ’s burgeoning population is increasingly well educated and high skilled in knowledge sectors. He said that the developed nations including the U.K which have an ageing population and will consequently experience a resultant skills shortfall, should take the opportunity to utilize IndiaÂ’s knowledge workers, to meet the global demand for the same." India is likely to have a surplus educated labor force of between 19 and 37 million, while the current group of developed nations will experience a net work force shortfall of 32 - 39 million by 2020", he said. Highlighting IndiaÂ’s rapid surge ahead in the IT sector, Mahindra said that IndiaÂ’s software capabilities are well known and the capabilities are based upon IndiaÂ’s comparative factor endowment in highly trained workers. He said that "this factor endowment will keep growing and will diversify into offering professional services, IT enabled services, tele-medicine and e-learning to the world."

siliconindia