Reducing piracy to generate 44000 IT jobs

Reducing piracy to generate 44,000 IT jobs

Reducing software piracy in Asia by just ten percentage points can generate 435,000 new jobs, over $40 billion in economic growth, and over $5 billion in tax revenues

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Reducing software piracy in India by ten per cent over the next four years can generate an additional 44,000 new IT jobs, $3.1 billion in economic growth, and $200 million in tax revenues, according to a study released today by the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

The study predicts an additional $208 million in revenues to local vendors alone.

Further, reducing software piracy in Asia by just ten percentage points can generate 435,000 new jobs, over $40 billion in economic growth, and over $5 billion in tax revenues above current projections, the study revealed.

The study commissioned by BSA and conducted independently by International Data Corporation (IDC), notes that the information technology industry is already a major contributor to Asian economies. In 2007, Asian economies spent over $231 billion on IT goods and services including computers, peripherals, network equipment, packaged software and IT services. That spending supported more than 348,000 IT companies with 5.5 million IT industry employees, and helped generate $167 billion in IT-related taxes.

While the Asia region has much to gain from reductions in PC software piracy, high-piracy emerging economies like China, Russia and India could experience some of the most positive impacts, IDC study suggests.

Yet the IT sector's contribution to Asian economies would be even greater if the region's PC software piracy rate could be lowered by ten percentage points by 2011, the study said.

Such an improvement would add highly skilled jobs to the labor force, support the creation of new companies, lower business risks, and fund government services without a tax increase.

Moreover, reducing software piracy has a "multiplier effect." According to IDC, for every $1 spent on legitimate packaged software, an additional $1.25 is spent on related services from local vendors such as installing the software, training personnel and providing maintenance services.

Jeffrey J. Hardee, vice president and regional director, Asia Pacific, BSA, said, "However, out of an estimated $21 billion worth of PC software being employed in new computers in the Asia-Pacific region in 2006, $11.6 billion was deemed to have been pirated. This study clearly shows the huge economic benefits that economies would derive from a ten-point drop in PC software piracy over the course of the next four years."

The study included 42 economies, collectively representing 91 per cent of the entire global IT sector. Of these, 11 were Asian economies whose IT sector represents 94 per cent of the total IT sector size of the region.

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