After Shanghai and Shenzhen, it is the Northern Chinese city of Xuzhou that is wooing the Indian information technology and BPO industry to set up shop in the Xuzhou High-speed International Business Outsourcing District especially created for the IT-BPO sector.
“India is known for its IT and BPO industry globally …we want Indian IT and software majors to come to Xuzhou and take advantage of the infrastructure that we have created, besides financial aid that the government is offering for setting up establishments,” Vice-President of Xuzhou High-speed International Business Outsourcing District Liu Shuang told this correspondent.
Xuzhou that falls in the Jiangsu province and is in the middle between Beijing and Shanghai is known as a major transportation hub due to expressways and high-speed railway links.
“Xuzhou is the key stop of the high-speed railway connecting Beijing and Shanghai and country's East to West. Xuzhou as a transportation hub is of great advantage to every industry,” she added.
Ms. Liu, who was recently in India meeting all potential investors for the specialised IT-BPO park at Xuzhou, said: “Though Xuzhou is mainly known for the production of world-class machinery, we are now focussing on developing the IT-BPO sector. “We have already developed two world-class IT parks and are now looking at MNCs for its occupancy. Companies are being offered government subsidy, tax exemption and deduction on expenditure incurred on training of employees, besides relaxation in payment of rent. Based on the size of investment, the business characteristics and project scope, the government will also offer special benefits to the companies.”
Human resource
Ms. Liu pointed out that trained human resource, which includes over 1.6-lakh English-speaking IT talent pool from over 12 universities and 340 institutes, would help bridge the language barrier. “India's core competency lies in the BPO industry. Last year China came in second in the worldwide market share of the BPO industry, just behind India which was ranked first. China aims to expand this combined market share with a view to complementing India and together raising the market share of India and China as BPO destinations,” she said.
Stating that they were looking at establishing good trade and working relationship, she said: “While India can get some of its expertise in terms of IT-BPO practices, China can provide a good infrastructure to the business thus improving the overall efficiency of both countries. Many Indian big companies like TCS and Infosys have already made their presence felt in Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou…now Xuzhou can be support in many ways to these cities with the distance advantages. We are sure Indian companies would leverage these and grow exponentially,” Mr. Liu added.
