Indian IT industry targets 28 percent growth

Monday, 17 November 2003, 20:30 IST
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KOLKATA: The Indian information technology (IT) industry is aiming to notch up a 28 per cent growth in exports this year, a top industry official said Sunday. "We hope to log an export growth between 26-28 per cent over last year," Kiran Karnik, president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) said. India's IT exports stood at $9.5 billion in 2002-03. The industry, worth $16.5 billion in 2002-03, accounted for three per cent of India's GDP in 2002-03. The IT industry also employs over 700,000 professionals. The industry hopes to generate revenues of around $80 billion by 2008, Karnik said. NASSCOM expects the growth in exports despite a slowdown in the global economy. "The picture looks good despite a slowdown in world economy. The first half of this fiscal hasn't been good, but things will look up later in the year," Karnik said at a press conference here. He said the expected growth would come more from the increasing business process outsourcing (BPO) sector than the services sector. "Let's say the breakup would be like BPO 40-45 percent and services 18 percent," Karnik said. The U.S. is the Indian IT industry's biggest export market at 71 percent followed by the U.K. at 14 percent and rest of Europe at 9 percent in 2002-03. NASSCOM has been trying to create new markets in Europe, South America and Japan. "The U.S. remains our single largest market, but it's time we looked at newer business generation centres. This takes time, but we are working on it," Karnik said. The NASSCOM president said the industry had been "upset" with the decision of the U.S. to lower the ceiling of H1-B visas, but he was sure the development would not impact the industry in the long run. "In the short run, say about a year, the decision will disrupt business, but we will adjust over the long run. Basically, it will affect India-U.S. business in general," Karnik said. H1-B visas are valid for three years and are extendable for another three. Last year, the U.S. issued only 70,000 H1-B visas worldwide out of a total 195,000 visas in that category as the need for such visas dwindled in line with the economic slowdown. From October 1, the U.S. brought down the total number of H1-B visas to 65,000 from 195,000.
Source: IANS
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