Aim at 5% global IT mart by '08: Govt

The government said the Indian infotech industry should vie for more than 5% of the global market by 2008 - up from the present 2%.

"We enjoy advantage of extensive skills, competitive costs, and our main asset is the huge population base, with the average age of infotech workers at 26 years. With all these, our share in global infotech market is just 2 per cent while the target is to achieve 5 per cent by 2008, I think it is only natural that we should aim high," Minister of State for IT and Communications Thirunanavukkasar said here while inaugurating IndiaSoft, 2004.

While observing that to achieve the same India would have to make efforts in areas of outsourcing, administration and finance, he advised Indian IT companies to move up the value chain to tackle the backlash from the US.

"I advise Indian corporate to concentrate on high value addition and analytical based business process outsourcing; on entire business process and not just on call centres as outsourcing of such jobs hit the poor in these countries and backlash is a natural consequence", he said.

According to the minister one of the major area of concern is the over dependence on the US with more than 60 per cent of the country's software exports destined to the US.

"We have to explore new markets," he said adding even within India there is scope for outsourcing.

"India shining image in the IT sector has to be spread to new regions like south east Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the middle east countries, he said.

Within India, software industries are confined to three to four major centres. "We have to develop more centres of excellence in it to enhance our global share," the minister said.

The minister also called upon the Indian companies to follow the look east policy of the government with the Indian IT companies targeting to tap the markets in the east Asian region.

Observing that there is a lot of talk about the US backlash, the minister said the problem has to be studied in depth and a mutually acceptable solution arrived at on the contentious issue.

Earlier, speaking on the occasion, S Lakshminarayan, additional secretary, department of IT, said "the way the country's software exports are growing, there is a possibility of exceeding the target of $ 50 billion by 2008". The electronics and software exports during the current fiscal are likely to touch $ 14 billion.

According to him as a part of the Indian government's initiatives to spread expertise in IT sector to the global arena about 32 memorandum of understandings have been signed with different countries so far.