China beckons Indian IT firms to set shop in Dalian

Monday, 16 February 2004, 20:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
BANGALORE: Now it's China that has set its eyes on the low-cost, high quality Indian tech industry to complement its strengths in hardware with the software expertise of the sub-continent. In a bid to tap the software potential of Indian IT firms, a 14-member Chinese delegation from the northeastern province of Dalian is currently on an exploratory trip to India. Led by Dalian vice-mayor Dai Yulin, the Chinese team is in the high-tech city of Bangalore for a first-hand survey of its global IT majors to woo them to set shop in the port city of Dalian, which has a software market to the tune of $10 billion per annum and still growing. "We are here to welcome IT majors in Bangalore to explore Dalian with its cost advantage and the state-of-the-art facilities that we can provide them to target the far eastern market. Japan and Korea are just an hour away by flight from our province," Dai told IANS. Though it is quite natural for the Indian software sector to be focusing on the West for so long, the time has come for its global entities to turn towards Asia and tap the software potential in China, Japan and Korea, keeping in view their strengths in electronics and hardware industries, the visiting team said. "Indian IT firms will be treated on par with other global majors such as Accenture, Dell, GE, IBM, Hitachi, NEC, Panasonic and Sony, which have set shop in Dalian," Dai said. "We have a uniform policy for international firms, irrespective of the country they originate from." Capitalising on Dalian's hardware skills, Indian software firms have been invited to set up either wholly owned subsidiaries or joint ventures to foray into product segment, besides extending their service range. Keeping in view the long-term benefits of combining the hardware and software resources of China and India, both the developing countries can emerge as the global IT hub to capture a substantial share of the ICT market, worldwide, Dai asserted. "With the Indian IT enabled services (ITES) sector emerging as a market leader in the business process outsourcing (BPO) segment, they can explore our province to replicate the success by setting up similar facilities in Dalian," he said. "We can even consider a special package to Indian IT firms that would make them feel at home, language and cultural differences notwithstanding," Dai affirmed. As one of the five largest provinces in China for the ICT industry, Dalian is home to about 300 international software majors, including 60 Fortune 500 firms, with a cumulative investment of $15.8 billion in the last five years. Employing over 1000 people of different nationalities, these MNCs contributed substantially to the 50 percent growth rate registered by Dalian annually over the last three years. About 70 enterprises among them focus on the Japanese market spanning retail, banking and finance, logistics, and infrastructure services. Dai, however, admitted that Dalian had a long way to go in catching up with India's Silicon Valley (Bangalore), which boasts of about 50 CMM-Level-5 IT firms. "In terms of global standards and resources, we have only a few CMM-Level-5 companies and the rest are at levels 3 and 4. We are keen that some of the Level-5 firms in Bangalore look at expanding their operations to Dalian so as to raise the standard of quality to global levels," Dai noted. The scorching pace at which China is modernising its administrative machinery throws up exciting opportunities for Indian IT firms to bid for e-governance projects. "We hope an IT delegation from Bangalore will reciprocate our trip by visiting Dalian to participate in the China International Software and Information Service Fair 2004 in July and showcase their skills for big deals," Dai exhorted. Being the only national software fair of China, the meet offers an ideal platform for Indian IT and biotech firms to exhibit their technologies, services and solutions. Even Indian IT education firms like NIIT can offer their services to youths for a career in software, Dai said.
Source: IANS
siliconindia