Chinese Premier visits TCS centre in Goregaon

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) global development centre in suburban Goregaon east here Tuesday.

Tata Group Chairman Cyrus P. Mistry hosted Keqiang and his delegation at the centre.

Keqiang was given an overview of the Tata Group's operations in China with special focus on the Jaguar Land Rover SUV and TCS's growing investments and operations across the country.

Keqiang interacted with TCS and Tata Group employees in China at the Shanghai Global Development Centre through live video-conferencing.

The Tata Group was the only private Indian enterprise the Chinese premier chose to visit during his ongoing three-day trip to the country. TCS is the first Indian software company to set up shop and is growing significantly in China.

"China is a very important geography for the future growth of the Tata Group and we continue to increase our investments and scale of operations in that country. We have made substantial investments in many sectors across China. We believe that there can be tremendous cross-learning between India and China in the field of technology," Mistry said on the occasion.

Late last year, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) formed a joint venture with China's Chery Automobile with an investment of RMB 10.9 billion.

This included a manufacturing plant in Changshu which will be JLR's first all-new manufacturing facility outside the UK.

The year 2012 also saw China becoming JLR's largest global market and the country remains at the centre of the company's global strategy.

Besides providing attractive new products, JLR has invested in sales and after-saltes infrastructure with 163 dealers across China.

In 2002, TCS started operations in China and three years later, it was invited to form a JV supported by the National Development & Reforms Commission to create a large-scale global off-shoring base in that country.

Currently, TCS operates out of six locations in China - Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Dalian - and provides services in nine different languages -- English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian, Bahasa and Vietnamese.

Commanding a lead position in banking application software in the Chinese market, TCS BaNCS core banking system is being used by 14 banks in China, including the Special Administrative Region Hong Kong.