IT firms to benefit from Japan’s Sinophobia
Japan’s worries over China’s growing economic clout may turn out to be
a potential money spinner for India.
As Japan’s troubles with China rise over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Japanese textbooks ,UN Security council and the Yasukuni shrine, the country is looking further westwards to reduce its economic concentration on China .And it has found India.
For India, the Japanese interest is most welcome as it seeks emerging markets for its software and knowledge
exports .Having overrun the Americans market with 69.4% of its IT-ITeS exports and the European markets with 22.6% it is time to take on the top markets in Asia—Taiwan ,China and Japan .But there is a cultural issue here .Despite India being part of Asia, it has stronger linguistic and cultural links with the Anglo-Saxon world than with East Asia, which means English comes easier to the Indian techie than Japanese or Chinese.
So, the incredible Indian mind has devised a way out of this geo cultural puzzle .Top Indian IT giants are setting up shop in Chinese IT-friendly cities Dalian to attract Japanese outsourcing businesses, This means that Indian
companies will be using local Chinese and Japanese workers, there by overcoming the language issue .The jobs go to the Chinese and Japanese, but the companies are Indian and profits come to India.
It’s an advantage Indian IT companies will point out to Japan. Nasscom vice-president Sangeeta Gupta, which is leading a high-level 25 company delegation to Japan to investigate outsourcing possibilities in Japan, said, We are exploring exciting opportunities in East Asia and Oceania, which are emerging markets for India. They constitute only 7.4 % of our exports but we see huge possibilities.
Why Dalian? This North-East Chinese city has strong historical links with Japan, is blessed with a large population of Japanese speaking Chinese, and has gone out of its way to attract multinational IT companies. Dalian was the port city of the early 20th century Japanese puppet state of Manuchukuo and is a mere three hour flight away from Tokyo.
It’s a unique example of how technology and globalization forges inimitable relationships. The Dalian experience will also help Indian companies tap into the Chinese IT market. China is now producing more computer science graduates than India and its domestic market is increasing by 20% a year .China attracts a bigger chunk of foreign funds and its share of world exports is far larger than India. In IT ,however .India is outdoing its rival .Compared with $17.2 billion in IT products and services exports from India in 2004, China’s was $2.5 billion.
Meanwhile, a growing number of Indian techies are being trained in Japanese in Hyderabad, the first batch are already working in Japan after receiving language training in India. In the aftermath of Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visit to India in May, the Indian industry suddenly found a keen interest from Japan that had hitherto been absent.
The recent visit by the Japanese communications minister also brought interest from Japanese giants like NTT and Mitsubishi.