BIZCHINA / Top Biz News
China, India form IT venture
By Wang Xu (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-02-14 08:40
India's biggest IT company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), officially
launched a joint venture in Beijing yesterday and announced a contract
with China's Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS), a part of the central
banking system.
The joint venture in Beijing's Zhongguancun Software Park will provide IT
services to China's domestic market, as well as Europe, the United
States, Japan and the rest of Asia, the company's CEO said.
"The joint venture will help create a large-scale offshore base and
increase the scale of our business here," said S. Ramadorai, TCS's
managing director and CEO, at a press conference in Beijing.
Tata Consultancy Services Managing Director and CEO S. Ramadorai at a
news conference in Beijing yesterday announcing the launch of a joint
venture.
The first Indian outsourcing company to operate in China, TCS now has 800
consultants at its centers in Shanghai and Hangzhou. With the new venture
in Beijing, the company expects to increase its work force to at least
5,000 over five years.
"China's domestic market offers great opportunity for us, especially the
recently relaxed banking sector," said Johnson Lam, CEO of the joint
venture, noting that 43 percent of TCS total revenue comes from the
financial sector.
TCS said it will implement a comprehensive trading system for CFETS, the
official market for interbank trading and foreign exchange. The company
declined to reveal the value of the contract.
TCS and International Business Machines Corp said on February 8 that they
won a $100 million deal to upgrade the computer systems at Bank of China
Ltd.
China's banking sector has become an important new client for global IT
consultancies as lenders invest heavily in technology to improve risk
management and tighten control over branches. Domestic banks are also
facing increasing competition from overseas counterparts such as HSBC
Holdings Plc and Citigroup Inc.
TCS and its Chinese partners announced the joint venture in late 2005 and
later Microsoft said it would be a strategic investor in the company.
TCS Asia-Pacific owns 65 percent of the venture. Beijing Zhongguancun
Software Park Development Co Ltd, Tianjin Huayuan Software Area
Construction and Development Co Ltd and Uniware Co Ltd each hold 25
percent, with Microsoft expected to take the remaining 10 percent.
Indian software giants have been bulking up their operations in the
country in recent years to meet a shortage of technical staff. As
multinational companies continue to flock to China, the demand for IT
expertise provides a new revenue source for Indian software giants.
Satyam Computer Services, India's fourth-largest software exporter, said
it plans to increase its presence in China to more than 3,000
professionals by 2008.
Infosys said earlier it will invest $65 million in China by 2010 and
increase its staff numbers in the nation to 6,000.
(China Daily 02/14/2007 page13)
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
Chinese Mandarin
