NEW DELHI: "Because of the overheated wage structure in these countries, production costs have considerably gone up, forcing firms to relocate their bases to countries where factor costs including wage cost are relatively low," said D.K. Sareen, executive director of the state-owned Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC). While taking proactive steps to make Southeast Asian computer hardware companies view India favourably for the relocation of their production bases, ESC feels more investor-friendly policies are required. "We have to outbid China in this process, which is extending a slew of incentives to attract investment in the computer hardware industry through appropriate policy tooling," said Sareen in a statement. Though India has emerged as a major software centre, it is still lagging behind in the hardware sector. There is some ray of hope, however. India's export of computer hardware registered an impressive 50 percent growth during 2001-02 over the previous year, according to data compiled by ESC. "In value terms export of computer hardware is estimated at 18 billion during 2001-02 as compared to 12 billion in 2000-01. Head stacks is the major item that has pushed computer hardware exports followed by switching mode power supply, scanners, personal computers, add-on cards and printers," said Sareen. According to ESC, head stacks clocked an export turnover of 9.20 billion during 2001-02 as against 8.11 billion during the previous year, registering a growth of 9.37 percent. The major export destinations for this product were Malaysia, Britain, Mauritius, the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates. In the case of switching mode power supply, the second largest item exported from the country to markets in the U.S., Singapore, Portugal, Bangladesh and Thailand, the exports rose 28 percent from 160 million to 210 million. Singapore, Hong Kong and other countries in the region have emerged as major destinations for computer hardware exports from India. Total exports to the region rose around 20 percent to 13.25 billion during 2001-02 as against 11.07 billion in the previous year. The other important destinations for export of hardware during 2001-02 were Europe, the U.S, Middle East, Australia and Africa.
Source: IANS