Nasscom ropes in Vajpayee as India''s IT ambassador to China

Indian Minister for Communications and IT Arun Shourie and Shangahai City Informatization Bureau director Fan Xiping will also deliver keynote addresses at the Nasscom IT summit. The summit will witness participation from over 300 delegates, including Chinese government officials, business leaders from China's user industries and also senior executives of IT companies in China.

The key sessions that will be held at the summit will focus on enhancing cooperation between India and China in the areas of telecom and embedded software, banking and financial services sector and IT education.

Nasscom is also taking a high-level delegation to China, which will be led by Nasscom chairman Som Mittal and president Kiran Karnik. The delegation will include senior executives from IT companies representing the Indian software and services industry. Some prominent IT companies that are part of the Nasscom delegation include Tata Consultancy Services, NIIT, Digital Globalsoft, Zensar Technologies, Mphasis BFL, Nucleus Software Exports and vMoksha Technologies.

Says Karnik: "The aim of the summit is to strengthen the process of IT collaboration between India and China. China's user industry can gain from India's expertise in software and services and help improve their efficiencies. Indian IT companies can work with China in the area of chip design and telecommunication technology and use China as an offshore development centre to serve the Japanese market."

IT software and service exports from India to China is pegged at Rs 20 crore, which was 0.05 per cent of India's total software exports in 2001-02.