Sunday, October 10, 2004

Software, ITES exports surge

PUNE: Outcry against Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) notwithstanding, export of computer software, services and IT-enabled services grew 25 per cent during the last fiscal, clocking a whopping Rs 58,000 crore as against Rs 46,500 crore during 2002-03.
“If this trend is maintained, it is possible to achieve the target of $50 billion IT export by 2008 since software and IT-eS are the driving force of Indian IT exports,” Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) said.
Computer software and services recorded a growth of 15.28 per cent in 2003-04 to Rs 41,500 crore as compared to Rs 36,000 crore during the year-ago period, data released by ESC said.
This performance of software and services during 2003-04 has overshot the target by over two per cent in dollar terms due to hardening of the Rupee against dollar, ESC executive director, D K Sareen said.
Export of ITES has gone up by 57.14 per cent during the last financial year to reach Rs 16,500 crore while it was Rs 10,500 crore in the previous fiscal. Its export performance in the overall IT basket stood second, next only to computer hardware, which registered a growth of 162 per cent. However, ITES export during the period fell marginally short of the targetted Rs 17,198 crore.
According to ESC, the share of computer software and services and ITES to the total IT export was 88 per cent. Of this, computer software and services alone contributed 63 per cent to the IT export basket while the figure was 89 per cent in the year-ago period.
“This is mostly due to phenomenal increase in the export of electronic hardware, which has increased by 37.5 per cent in 2003-04 as compared to the previous year,” ESC said. Electronic hardware export has touched Rs 7,700 crore in 2003-04 as against Rs 5,600 crore in 2002-03.

As published in The Herald, Pune.(c) The Herald.

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