The Hindu : Business : L&T Infotech plans China centre

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 31, 2004

Business

Business

L&T Infotech plans China centre

SHANGHAI, AUG. 30. India's leading engineering and construction conglomerate, Larsen and Toubro today said it was planning to set up a software development centre in China and make it a manufacturing base for the global market as part of the company's foray into the international arena.

``We are looking at establishing a software development centre in China for our Far East markets,'' the Chairman and Managing Director of L&T, A. M. Naik, told reporters after formally inaugurating the company's first Representative Office in China's commercial hub.

"L&T Infotech, a wholly-owned subsidiary, in the near future, intends to open a 100 seats IT and software development centre in China,'' he said adding this would enable the company to deliver solutions and services to its local customers, including multinationals.

Mr. Naik, who is one his first visit to China to understand the complex market, said the software development centre was likely to be established in the second half of 2005. He did not identify the city where L&T would establish the software centre. This would be L&T's first such facility apart from its six software development centres in India and one in the U.S.

"We think that China is going to be extremely competitive in the next five to ten years where we need to have our own presence to diversify our interests in information technology,'' Mr. Naik said.

Though Mr. Naik did not specify the quantum of investments that L&T will pour into China, the top executive said money was not a problem since the company was a `big player.'

The Consul General of India in Shanghai, Sujan Chinoy, who jointly inaugurated the L&T Representative Office with Mr. Naik, described L&T's foray into China as a major event in the growing economic relations between India and China.

While congratulating Mr. Naik on L&T's decision to open its Representative Office in Shanghai and diversify its operations in China, Mr. Chinoy noted that bilateral trade which reached a record $7.6 billion in 2003 was expected to touch $12 billion this year, an all-time high.

PTI

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