Indian IT companies eye Latin American, African markets for business expansion

By Lokender Singh, Jaipur, March 13 : While the companies across the world are taking their time to overcome the impact of recession, Indian Information technology companies are exploring new and non-commercial markets in Latin America, Africa and Middle Eastern countries to expand their business.

Over 100 Indian companies got an opportunity to interact with around 250 foreign delegates and establish business relations with them during a three-day-long IT networking event, Indiasoft 2010 held here.

Business delegations from the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East, Japan, China, Korea, Latin America, Africa, CIS, and South-East Asian countries participated in the event that was designed to showcase India's remarkable advancements in information technology.

"This entire concept is to promote local Indian IT companies, so that they find buyers, have networking and do business-to-business meetings. Today, the focus of Indian exports is changing and the government feels our entire product software was depending on Europe and USA. But now it should change the demographic and we should have Latin America, Africa as markets as well," said A K Gupta, Chairman of Electronic and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC), Rajasthan Committee.

The expo also provided a platform for joint ventures, business collaboration and strategic alliances for outsourcing between overseas buyers and Indian software companies.

Software and services buyers said that they were attracted to doing business in India because of the reasonable prices and excellent services offered by these companies.

"The Indian quality and good prices are known all over the world. And we search companies to partner with us so that we can take advantage of these benefits. And these companies are very welcome to do business in our country," said Edson Althoff, an IT professional from Brazil.

The event organizers aimed to project the potential strength of the Indian software industry, especially small and medium enterprises, and start-up companies in the global IT market.

Indian companies are estimated to have done a business of over three billion rupees (66,021,128.76 dollars) through this expo.

The 10th edition of Indiasoft, the largest global information technology networking event in India, concluded on Friday (March 12).