Can India Produce The New Google?

New Delhi, India, 4 December 2007 – At today’s plenary session on tech sector growth during the World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit taking place in New Delhi, Edward J. Zander, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Motorola, USA, and a Co-Chair of the India Economic Summit, said India has already proved itself as a leader in the IT support and services sectors. He stated it has "all the ingredients" for continued success: good levels of education, well-established centres of excellence, and a good relationship between the private and public sectors.

"And India is looking more and more like Silicon Valley in terms of venture capital," he added. But Zander warned that India could be overtaken by emerging IT countries if it fails to maintain its edge and develop its own IT products. "The real question is whether the next Oracle or the next Google is going to originate here. Is the next Yahoo going to be here?" he asked. Session participants agreed that India would continue to thrive in the IT sector.

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But concerns were raised about a number of issues: slow growth in hardware production, the lack of an integrated taxation system, the growing strength of the rupee, rising wages and the lack of adequate infrastructure. The president and chief executive officer of one of the world’s leading personal computing companies warned that it is much easier to do business in China than in India, where each state has different business rules and regulations. India would be more efficient if it operated as a single country instead of many different states, William J. Amelio of Lenovo Group USA, said.

Ashwani Kumar, Minister of State, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, India, conceded that India continues to have some problems with red tape. But he robustly defended his country’s democratic system, saying it is not reasonable to compare India with China. Democracy in India, he said, is a fundamental principle and will guarantee its continued economic development during the 21st century. He stressed, however, that India needs to scale up manufacturing in the electronic and IT hardware sectors.

Deepak Puri, Chairman and Managing Director, Moser Baer India, echoed Kumar’s concerns about India’s performance in the hardware sector, but added that "solutions are available … India is an amazing country."

This plenary took place on the last day of the World Economic Forum’s 23rd India Economic Summit, held in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in New Delhi. The Summit brings together approximately 800 business, political and civil society leaders from 40 countries. It is designed to generate insight and guide action to improve the alignment of India’s development, industry and global agendas in the context of this year's theme, Building Centres of Excellence.

Source: World Economic Forum