Speeches/Statements Ambassador Bambawale's Speech at the launching ceremony of NASSCOM IT Corridor; 27 May 2018, Guiyang

Ambassador Bambawale's Speech at the launching ceremony of NASSCOM IT Corridor; 27 May 2018, Guiyang

Embassy of India
Beijing
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LAUNCH Of NASSCOM IT CORRIDOR

SPEECH BY
AMBASSADOR GAUTAM BAMBAWALE

(27 May 2018, Guiyang)

Your Excellency, Mr. Wei Guonan, Vice Governor of the People’s Government of Guizhou Province,

Mr. Chen Yan, Mayor of Guiyang City, and Deputy Secretary of Guiyang Municipal Committee,

Delegates and Company Representatives from India and China,

      I am delighted to be in Guiyang with all of you today for the official launch of the NASSCOM IT Corridor and the establishment of the ‘Sino-Indian Digital Collaboration Plaza’ (SIDCOP).  The NASSCOM IT Corridor visualizes collaboration between Member companies of NASSCOM and the Guiyang city authorities aimed at setting up local offices for completing projects in your city and assisting companies from Guiyang to establish software and IT units in India.  An Indian company called ‘Zeta-V’ will establish an Artificial Intelligence enabled platform called ‘Sino-Indian Digital Collaboration Plaza’ (SIDCOP) which will help in bringing together the IT requirements of Chinese companies, particularly in Guiyang, with Indian companies which have solutions to offer.    In this way, we will be marrying together the requirements of Chinese companies with the capabilities of Indian IT service providers.    We visualize that these initiatives will give a big impetus to cooperation between India and China in the IT-enabled services sector. 

2.   India-China relations are progressing well, particularly after the Informal Summit meeting at Wuhan on 27 and 28 April 2018 between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Modi.   The two leaders decided to meet at an informal summit so that they could have candid, free and open discussions with each other aimed at enhancing strategic communication between themselves.  They spoke with each other for almost 10 hours at Wuhan, discussing their goals and objectives for their own countries, how they viewed the fast-changing international situation and in this context how they would like to see India-China bilateral ties developing over the coming months.   As a result of these unprecedented discussions between the leaders of India and China, they were able to reach consensus on over-arching and strategic issues.  It is now left for the rest of us to take their vision forward.  Ladies and Gentlemen, as a result of the successful talks between President Xi and Prime Minister Modi at Wuhan, we now have a political environment in which India and China business and commercial ties can expand rapidly. 

3.    Already, our bilateral trade has reached levels it has never experienced before.  In calendar year 2017, India-China trade amounted to US $ 84 billion.  Last year also witnessed many other successes in the commercial sphere.  The Indian Bollywood film ‘Dangal’ (called ‘Shuai Jiao Baba’ in Chinese) became one of the highest earning non-Chinese films in your country.  Conversely, Xiaomi, a well-known Chinese firm, became the largest supplier of mobile handsets in the Indian market.  All these facts show that there is enormous potential for commercial cooperation between our two countries.

4.    As you all know, India is a world leader in the area of Information Technology and IT Enabled Services with annual revenue of over US$ 164 Billion and exports of over US$ 120 Billion.  Our IT companies have a presence in more than 70 countries in the world- generating employment for up to 12 million people worldwide.  In China, Indian IT companies are present in 10 cities around the country, with a total work-force of around 25,000 employees.  However, we believe that the potential for Indian companies to cooperate with China is huge and needs more work and effort. 

5.    Therefore, I warmly welcome the launch of the ‘NASSCOM IT Corridor’ as well as the ‘Sino-Indian Digital Collaboration Plaza’ (SIDCOP) here today.   Indian IT companies have proven capabilities and are uniquely suited to partner their Chinese counterparts in implementing your initiatives in Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Internet Plus.   This has only become possible because of the cooperation we have received from the Guizhou Provincial authorities and the Guiyang City authorities.  We thank them for their positive and forward-looking approach.

6.    I wish the ‘NASSCOM IT Corridor’ and the ‘Sino-Indian Digital Collaboration Plaza’  all success in the coming months. Thank You.

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