/ciol/media/agency_attachments/c0E28gS06GM3VmrXNw5G.png)
Follow UsBANGALORE: India's leading software industry body said on Tuesday that
software exports could be affected if a military standoff between India and
Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir region, which has sparked global fears of a
full-blown war, does not ease soon.
"Our view is that the problem has not led to any loss of business and
that the tension will reduce soon," Kiran Karnik, president of the National
Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), said in a statement.
"However, if the standoff does continue for long, it could begin to affect
business," he said.
Software exports represent about 16 per cent of India's total exports and are
the fastest-growing segment. Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan have massed
a million troops along their border and staged daily artillery duels since a
December raid on the Indian parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based
militants.
On Tuesday, fighting intensified on the border between the South Asian
neighbours as leaders of both nations took part in a regional summit in
Kazakhstan, but publicly stuck to long-held positions on Kashmir which have
brought them to the brink of war.
Having ridden out a global technology slowdown with some style, India's
cut-rate IT services and software exporters have seen business slowly picking up
in the last few months as overseas customers from a range of industries
outsource to cut costs.
Industry executives, however, fear business could be hurt by a prolonged
reduction in visits to the country by overseas clients after the United States,
Britain and other Western nations urged tens of thousands of their nationals to
leave India, fearing a war in the region.
Nasscom has forecast India's IT services and software exports to grow 30 per
cent in the year to March 2003, after managing 29-per cent growth in the
previous year. India's software service exports totaled $7.5 billion last year
with the United States making up about 60 per cent of exports.