Indian IT majors like TCS, HCL and Infosys have raised concerns regarding market access issues and non-tariff barriers in China with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, as they are creating hurdles for them to set up business in that country.
During the discussions, the representatives of the companies informed the minister that India’s investments and business have not been able to grow in China due to various non-tariff barriers and challenges faced by Indian companies to set up their entity in China, said an official statement.
One of the major focus area of the discussion was market access issues as it creates hurdles for Indian companies to open their business in China. Chinese IT services market is the third largest in the world. The meeting was attended by senior managers of TCS, Satyam Venture Engineering, HCL, NIIT Tech, Infosys, Invento Robotics, Tech Mahindra and Wipro.
Goyal asked the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) and the senior managers of the companies to share specific data regarding non-tariff barriers being faced by them in China and other East Asian markets.
“Government of India will give all support for the global growth of India’s flagship industry and will make all efforts to facilitate the IT service industry and for that it is ready to engage with China and also Japan and Korea”, Goyal said during the meeting. Sangeeta Godbole, DG of Services Export Promotion Council (SEPC) and President of NASSCOM, Debjani Ghosh, were also present during the discussions with Goyal.
The focus of the meeting was also on exploring opportunities for IT companies to invest and grow their business in new markets like the Nordic countries, Eastern and Central Europe, Canada, Australia and Africa. India’s IT industry contributed 7.7 per cent to the country’s GDP in financial year 2016-17 and is expected to contribute 10 per cent of India’s GDP by 2025.
According to IT industry body NASSCOM, the aggregated revenues of the sector stood at USD 160 billion in 2017. The United States account for two-third of India’s IT services exports.
India’s IT and ITeS industry grew to USD 181 billion in 2018-19. Exports from the industry increased to USD 137 billion in fiscal year 2018-19 while domestic revenues (including hardware) advanced to USD 44 billion. The minister also asked the IT services companies to explore other markets and not be inhibited in operating in countries that are non-English speaking.
He urged the top five Indian IT firms to create a corpus that will be spent on training manpower in languages like Mandarin, Japanese and Korean for accessing the markets in these countries. India is the largest exporter of IT services in the world and exports dominate the Indian IT industry and constitutes about 79 per cent of the total revenue of the industry.
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