Double-digit growth by next year: Nasscom

Double-digit growth by next year: Nasscom
The Hindu Business Line, November 11, 2009, Page 3

‘We have to move beyond 6 major cities to grow’.

Our Bureau, New Delhi

With a turnaround in global business sentiment, the Indian IT sector is expected to return to double digit growth by the next financial year, according to the Nasscom President, Mr Som Mittal.

“I think we are already seeing the changes in the trends that we had anticipated. While the first quarter was relatively flat, the vector is still right. This year, the growth is anticipated to be around 4-7 per cent and double digit growth will be reached by the next fiscal,” Mr Mittal said on the sidelines of the India Economic summit on Tuesday.

Mr Mittal pointed out that that while there were some positive signs, the industry might not reach the levels of growth it had posted till 2007.

“We had growth rates of 30 per cent for a whole decade. But it is very difficult to sustain that. In the next 10-12 years, we will grow at a compounded annual growth rate of about 14 per cent,” he added.

Action plan

Mr Mittal said that to achieve this growth, Nasscom (the National Association of Software and Services Companies) had charted out an action plan.

“We would like to increase our industry size, which was $50 billion last year to $225 billion. To reach this, we have to move beyond doing work in just the top six cities and move to the 43 other cities identified,” he said.

He added that hiring was starting to pick up again and by January, hiring levels should be “back to normal”.