India 4th largest economy: World Bank
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Ahead of the International Monetary Fund-World Bank meeting, the World Bank on Tuesday placed India as the fourth largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, even as it said the country lagged behind in technology and efficiency.
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Global economic growth has reached a turning point with a slowdown now clearly under way, led by the United States, the World Bank said on Wednesday.
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New Delhi: India, the world&#39;s largest democracy, ranks 120th in the media freedom index of 167 countries with Denmark on top and North Korea at the bottom.
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India&#39;s business process outsourcing companies could attain revenues of up to $50 billion by 2012, but the industry will need greater investments in education and infrastructure by the government, according to a new report released Tuesday.At its current growth rate, India&#8217;s $11 billion BPO industry will reach about $30 billion by 2012, said the joint report, published by consultancy firm Everest Group and India&#8217;s National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).If the industry reaches $50 billion in revenue, it will directly employ two million staff and provide indirect employment for two to three times more people, said Som Mittal, president of Nasscom. The industry would comprise 2.5 percent of India&#39;s GDP (gross domestic product).Mittal said India&#39;s federal and local governments would have to play a larger role in order to push revenue to $50 billion. Over the last 10 years, the industry has done much on its own, such as building power generation facilities and providing training to staff, but could use more government support, Mittal said.Indian companies spend a lot on in-house training because the education system in India does not have direct links with the BPO industry, said Raman Roy, chairman and managing director of Quattro, a BPO firm.The BPO industry needs more employable graduates with skills in new areas such as analytics or the industry could face staff shortages of up to one million&#160;people for entry-level positions, Roy said.Some companies have explored setting up operations in smaller cities due to competition for staff from the retail and telecommunication areas.&#8220;We hire people from small cities, but we cannot set up operations there because the infrastructure does not exist,&#8221; Roy said. It is unfair to ask managers to move to small towns where there are no hospitals or entertainment, he added.The BPO industry now plans to set up regional hubs and develop infrastructure, including communications capabilities and staff housing. Many BPO companies now spend time and money transporting staff between cities and suburbs.The industry is also demanding that BPO companies be allowed to use the same facilities during daytime to address domestic business. India prohibits using the same facility for domestic and export business.Since nighttime operations focus on servicing foreign customers in the U.S. and Europe, using the same facilities during the day for domestic business would benefit companies, Mittal said.
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Georgia makes more progress than any country in smoothing the way for business, the World Bank says.
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The developing countries will enjoy the strongest economic growth in three decades this year andshould continue to enjoy solid expansion in 2005 and 2006, the World Bank predicted on Tuesday.
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Pakistan&#39;s economy is set to grow more than 6 percent this fiscal year, despite the threat of inflation, a weakening currency and pressure on its balance of payments, a World Bank official said Monday.
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Days after India&#39;s stock market hit an all-time high, hundreds of executives and policymakers from around the world gathered Sunday to explore business opportunities in one of the world&#39;s fastest-growing economies.
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The World Bank said on Wednesday it had approved a $600 million loan for India to help it revamp thousands of ailing rural cooperative banks and fight village poverty through cheap loans.
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(InfoWorld) - Indiaâs business providing software and services to companies outside its borders will grow a healthy 26 to 29 percent this year, the country's main trade association for that sector said Monday. Revenue from exports of software, services and business process outsourcing (BPO) will reach about $40 billion for the fiscal year that ends next March 31, according to data released Monday by the National Association of Software and Services Company (NASSCOM). Export revenue from these sectorsÂ grew 33 percent to $31.3 billionÂ in the fiscal year to March 31,Â according to data released by the trade body. The strong growth in software and services exports is coming from an improvement in India's competitiveness, and the addition of new services, such as remote infrastructure management, by Indian service providers, Kiran Karnik, president of NASSCOM told reporters in Bangalore on Monday. The revenue figure also includes exports to their parent companies and clients by Indian subsidiaries of multinational companies such as IBM, Oracle, and Accenture, that are expanding fast in India. Indiaâs overall IT industry grew by 30.7 percent in the year to March 31 to earn revenue of $39.6 billion, with the domestic market also growing by 22 percent to $8.2 billion, NASSCOM said. Many multinational companies including Hewlett-Packard and IBM have bagged outsourcing contracts from Indian companies. The Indian IT industry employed about 1.6 million staff as of March 31, besides about 6 million indirect staff employed in supporting the large offshore software development and BPO operations in India, Karnik said. About 1.2 million people are employed in developing software and running back office processes and call centers for customers abroad. The U.S. continues to be the largest market for Indian exports, accounting for 66 percent of revenue, Karnik said. Indiaâs IT industry is facing high staff attrition and salary increases, but that will not slow down growth, Karnik said. In the short term, NASSCOM, of Delhi, is helping set up finishing schools that will make more Indian graduates employable by the IT and the BPO industry, he said. In the long-term, though, NASSCOM is counting on more investments by government and industry in the education sector, he added. The IT industry in India is also grappling with the strengthening of the Indian Rupee against the US dollar, which pushes down realization in Rupees of revenue earned abroad by Indian companies. In the year to March 31, exports of IT services grew by 35.5 percent to $18 billion, while exports of BPO services grew 33.5 percent to $8.4 billion. Revenue from exports of engineering services, a classification that deals with non-electronic design services, grew by 23 percent to $4.9 billion.
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India's economic growth unexpectedly accelerated during the last quarter on the back of rapid growth in consumer credit and government spending, raising the likelihood that the central bank will raise borrowing costs for the fourth time in a year.
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that is, in other countries such as China and India. According to an IDC study, China&#39;s IT growth is expected to be 15% annually and India&#39;s about 20%.
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East Asia is headed for its fastest growth rate since before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, pushing poverty levels to a record low, the World Bank says.
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The World Bank has called upon the governments of poor countries to work for improving their investment climates as done by India and China, saying it was central to economic growth and poverty reduction.
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India is on course to overtake Brazil as the world&#39;s biggest sugar producer in 2007/2008, the International Sugar Organization forecast Friday in a report which also predicted a record surplus.
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NEW DELHI: India ranks 55th in a World Economic Forum ranking of 104 countries in terms of growth competitiveness. As per the WEFâs Global Competitiveness Report 2004-05, Finland, home to Nokia, is the world
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Since February 2007, the value of India's stock market has doubled to 20000 points, and the biggest winners have been India's richest. Based on these gains, India's four wealthiest men are now worth more than China's 40 wealthiest combined.