NEW DELHI: Several Indian companies will be participating under the umbrella of the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) in the annual exhibition cum forum titled 'Info-Communications of Russia- 21st Century' (Infocom'2003) to be held in Moscow from September 9-13. "This is the first major initiative from the Indian IT industry to explore the emerging opportunities in the region, particularly in the Russian Federation and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries," said D.K. Sareen, executive director of ESC. Exhibition and Forum Infocom'2003 is expected to acquaint Indian companies with the developments and projects being undertaken in Russia, said Sareen in a statement. "The ESC has identified Russia as a major potential market for information technology since that country, of late, has embarked on strengthening IT infrastructure. Russia also has evinced keen interest in having tie-ups with India in the IT and the related sector," said Sareen. At an interface with ESC members recently, Russian Senior Deputy Minister for Information Technology Andrei Korotkov had expressed keenness that India and Russia could join hands with each other in bridging the rural-urban digital divide in both the countries. Russia like India, is laying considerable focus on empowering the rural people spread over 80,000 villages through digital revolution. The IT backbone has to be built in these areas. Russians have sophisticated technology in wide ranging areas like telecom and fibre optics. This could be successfully combined with India's capabilities in software development, the Russian minister had observed. According to Sareen, several Russian software development companies may be interested in tie-ups with Indian software companies because of their high reputation. At present there are a number of small products driven companies in Russia like Spirit Corp, Abbyy Software and Kaspersky Lab, which have managed to create a niche for themselves in software development and are now keen to make a foray into the Indian market particularly in sectors like bio-informatics. The exhibition would provide the opportunity for Indian companies to showcase their expertise and seek tie-ups, he added. The Exhibition and Forum Infocom 2003 is being organised under the patronage of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation. Over 200 leading Russian and foreign telecommunication and IT companies, service providers, research institutes from Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, China, the U.S., France and Japan would be participating. From India companies like Shyam Telecom Ltd. Acme Telepower, Coral Telecom, Neulite Products, and Web Works India Limited are participating.
Source: IANS