The Hindu Business Line : `Virtual delivery services very promising'

The Nasscom Chairman, Mr B. Ramalinga Raju, said that the global services industry accounts for about two thirds of world's gross domestic product and of this about 50 per cent have the potential to be delivered virtually.

That means, of the $42 trillion economy about two thirds is accounted for by the services and Indian services sector can make significant inroads into this large virtual delivery of services segment, he explained.

Speaking at the Gitex, the flagship IT event in Hyderabad, Mr Raju said that from barely $100 million in exports in late 80's, the IT services segment has grown to about $24 billion and is on course to achieving $80 billion by 2010.

Including agriculture

Factoring the current day world trade issues, policy makers in the country need to tune their policies that seek to integrate the Indian agriculturists into the global trade fold. This is vital as even now about 70 per cent of the people are dependent on farm sector.

He said though there is effort to improve the infrastructure, this continues to be one single major concern for the country. "Alongside, we need to ensure that a larger chunk of the 3 million graduates that come out of colleges get right training to be employable, which will further boost India's share in the global services sector," he said.

Satyam Computer, Wipro, Microsoft, Oracle, Genpact, HSBC India group, Nipuna, 24x7 Customer, LinkWell Telesystems, OSI Systems, Value Labs, Semantic Space were among others chosen by the IT&C department for exemplary contribution in the sector.

Alongside Gitex, the Indiasoft 2007 of the ESC and Computer Shopper too were inaugurated on Tuesday.