— PHOTO: PTI

RAISES SIGHT: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh speaking at the concluding day of India Leadership Forum, organised by Nasscom, in Mumbai on Friday.

MUMBAI: The information technology (IT) sector and the electronics industry, which became the leading exporter of the economy in 2006 at $25 billion, should aim for an export target of $80 billion by 2010 against the target of $60 billion set by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here on Friday.

Delivering the valedictory address of Nasscom 2007 — India Leadership Forum, Dr. Singh said, "last year, electronics and IT sector exports crossed Rs. 1 lakh crore, accounting for a fifth of our exports. I believe Nasscom has set an export target of $60 billion by 2010. But we must be more ambitious. Considering the way in which our economy and exports are rising, this target should be met by 2008 and by 2010, we should be looking at a target of $80 billion.''

According to Dr. Singh, with competition growing from around the world, the industry would need to work hard to retain its edge and even harder to increase its share of the world market. "The software industry must move towards providing system solutions. In the field of business process outsourcing (BPO), we must not only retain our first mover advantage, but also move up the value chain. To be able to do so, our BPO industry should increasingly become a knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) industry. However, the transition from BPO to KPO would require broad-basing the knowledge economy and improving its capabilities and would require the same degree of openness that is seen in the IT sector.''

The Prime Minister pointed out that the biggest challenge for the industry was in relation to human resources. "We have a quantity problem and a quality problem. The problem has to be tackled in different time frames — short-term, medium-term and long-term.''

While in the short term, programmes were needed to top up the skill level of graduating students through `finishing schools' and `finishing programmes,' which will help resolve the quality problem. In the medium term, according to Mr. Singh, "this kind of training needs to be back-ended into the formal system itself by improving the quality of our technical and general education programmes at the graduate level. This will make graduates far more employable.'' In the long term, Dr. Singh said, the quantity problem needs to be addressed. "The education system needs to be expanded, rapidly at all levels. The success of our education initiatives at the grassroots level, along with the favourable demographics of India will ensure that a far greater number pass out of high school each year,'' he said.

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