DESPITE the global slowdown, the information technology in India has continued to be the prime mover of growth, Confederation of Indian Industry has said.
“The economic growth at six per cent (achieved last year) is the second highest in the world but we must grow faster and quicker at eight to nine per cent on a consistent basis to make an impact,” CII president Sanjiv Goenka said at a Commonwealth Indian Investment seminar here yesterday.
Goenka, who is leading a high level delegation including managing director of ICICI K V Kamath and chairman and chief executive Infosys Technologies N A Narayana Murthy, said economic liberalisation was going on at a good pace.
“We have to move in the area of labour reforms and reform in infrastructure, particularly the power sector.
“India is integrating with the world economy and Indian companies are restructuring as never before,” Goenka, vice chairman of RPG Enterprises, said.
Delivering the keynote address on “how technology brings business benefits in the financial sector”, Narayana Murthy said information technology has transformed the banking system in the country and made them more competitive.
He said banks had used it for optimising delivery and had become very agile.
Chairman CDC Capital partners and chairman Commonwealth Business Council Lord Cairns said “the quality of service and standard set by Indian IT experts was very high and Indian it companies were second to none”.
“Thanks to IT, the whole structure of financial services is set to change and increase effectively,” he said.
“I hope out of this, we can continue to build many partnerships among companies based here and in India,” Cairns said.
The worldwide IT spending would exceed $ 1 trillion in the next ten years. Revenue of Indian firms from it related services is estimated to exceed $88 billion by 2008, Arun Singh, one of the speakers said.