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A beeline to India...from US

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CIOL Bureau
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BANGALORE: Enthused by the response to the Australia's state of Victoria trade delegation which participated in BangaloreIT.COM last year, the state now wants to make sure that Indian ICT companies set up shop in this throbbing Aussie business hub that includes the city of Melbourne.






To cement better business relationships between the two countries, Victorian premier Steve Bracks was in Bangalore to meet with leading Indian IT and biotech companies and also interact with the Karnataka government. He spoke to Priya Padmanabhan of CyberMedia on how Karnataka and Victoria could channel their synergies for mutual benefit.





What has been the outcome of your visit so far?





The Victorian government has signed a MoU with the Government of Karnataka to establish strong links between the two regions in areas like education, ICT, manufacturing and biotechnology. The MoU was a general agreement to cooperate and look at opportunities to enhance trade ties between the two countries and with particular emphasis on ICT and biotechnology. Other possible areas include aerospace and design.





This is because Victoria shares similarities with the state of Karnataka. We are both innovative states. Both pursue areas of the new economy like ICT, biotechnology and both are also interested in advancing our prospects with the rest of the world.





Can you elaborate on the trade office, which will be established in Bangalore?





The trade office will come up in around six months to a year's time in Bangalore. We want to create a direct link for Indian companies to invest in Victoria. The volume of trade between the two countries is around $480 million every year. We want to ensure that India's CT industry continues to choose Victoria as its preferred investment location and the office will act as the link.





What are the reasons for selecting India as a trade partner especially in IT?





IT in terms of business engagements and partnerships in Australia has largely been oriented towards the US. Since the last five years, that orientation is changing as Australian companies and governments are looking at other viable prospects. Now we are oriented towards India and I want to be at the forefront of it. I'm the first head of state from Victoria to visit India.





If you look at the top 15 IT companies in India, nine of these have operations in Victoria. Infosys alone has around 600 people in Melbourne. There are also other companies like Satyam, TCS, Wipro, Patni Computer Systems, Perot Systems, etc. This is an example of what we believe will happen broadly.





Thirty years ago, the Victorian Government and business community decided that the US and Japan would be our two big growth areas. So, we had a lot of investment in Japan and the US. We will continue that in the future, but now, we have strategized that the growth areas we want to pursue in trade and investment 30 years on would be in India, China and the Middle East. We want to look at these new markets for JVs, better cooperation and synergy.








What are the strategic advantages that Victoria offers vis-à-vis the rest of Australia?







We are the innovation capital in Australia. We are strong on biotechnology and have good long-standing medical research institutions. The state of Victoria contributes 25 percent of the Australian economy. Almost half of all biotech companies in Australia are concentrated in Victoria. We make up for 33 percent of Australia's ICT workforce. We have a strong design component- manufacturing of motor vehicles, design and research in Toyota, GM and Ford. The reason we have chosen to partner with India is because these are the strengths that this region sees for itself as well. Gaming, animation and film pre- and post-production are other strong areas.








What kind of business opportunities can Indian IT companies go after in Australia?





There are a lot of IT services opportunities in areas like automotive, imaging, energy and utilities, manufacturing and BFSI. Government projects and activities are also quite big there. Australia is very open to outsourcing and we are very mature in that area.
































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