Centre will give full support to IT sector for accelerating growth, taking service exports to 1 trillion USD: Goyal

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Sunday assured the leaders of top Indian IT companies that the Centre will give full support to the IT sector in order to accelerate growth and help India's service exports soar to one trillion USD in a decade.

Goyal was addressing a virtual meeting with the leaders of top Indian IT companies.

Goyal said India was on track to achieve its merchandise exports target of 400 billion USD this year, while services exports were likely to about 240 billion to 250 billion USD, which is much lower, but can grow rapidly catch up with merchandise exports.

"When I look at the trajectory of these - I personally believe this is going to be a race to the top. We can converge 1 trillion USD. That should be the ambition, mission. You have a little bit of catching up to do. I will be delighted if you cross 1 trillion USD faster than them," the minister told IT industry leaders.

The minister welcomed the IT industry's proposal to start IT hubs in tier-2 and tier-3 towns, which would create numerous jobs and help develop the regions. He said the IT industry should identify the towns, and the Centre would assist them in providing all the necessary infrastructure and facilities.

Goyal said the IT industry can make a big contribution to services exports by focusing on new technology and products that can make India a bigger global players in the sector.

He said the IT industry had grown spectacularly on its own and many of the top companies grew at a time when India did not focus on creating a favourable ecosystem for startups. He added that the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) will provide any assistance needed by the IT industry to help it grow rapidly and contribute to India's export of services.

The virtual meeting was attended by Nasscom President Debjani Ghosh, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh, Tech Mahindra CEO & MD C.P. Gurnani; Srikanth Velamakanni, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence technology startup Fractal Analytics; Mphasis CEO Nitin Rakesh; Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji; Genpact CEO N.V. Tyagrajan; WNS Global Services Group CEO Keshav R Murugesh; Mastek CEO Hiral Chandrana; Krishnan Ramanujam, President and Head of Business & Technology Services at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

( With inputs from ANI )

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