India
and China mull cooperation in software field
Beijing: Indian and Chinese software majors have held discussions in
order to find common grounds for future cooperation. Senior executives of
top Indian software companies like Infosys, TCS, Satyam, Wipro, who have already
invested in China and set up operations in Beijing, participated in the 'Sino-Indian
Software Industry Cooperation Summit'.
Vice
mayor of the city Fan Boyuan and other officials welcomed the Indian software
industries to Beijing. The local government would offer incentives and tax
breaks to them if they set up bases at the Zhongguancun Software Park, dubbed
as 'China's Silicon Valley', they added. Chinese
participants at the seminar, supported by Microsoft, stressed that they were
willing to cooperate with Indian software firms in order to attract more Japanese
and South Korean clients for Indian companies since they had the local expertise,
language advantage, proximity and cultural links. In turn, the Chinese hoped
that Indian software companies would enable them to gain a foothold in US
and EU markets. The
seminar has been jointly organised by the Beijing Municipal Commission of
Development and Reform and the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission.
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Myanmar-India-Bangladesh
gas pipeline agreement by March end
New Delhi: Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has said that India,
Bangladesh and Myanmar will sign a tripartite agreement by March-end for the
laying of a one billion dollar Myanmar-India gas pipeline. According
to Aiyar, the three sides have agreed on the draft memorandum of understanding
(MoU) at the technical level meeting in Yangon last week and will be signing
the tripartite agreement in Dhaka by the end of next month. The pipeline will
run through Arakan (Rakhine) state in Myanmar, the Indian states of Mizoram
and Tripura before crossing Bangladesh to Kolkata. The
290-km pipeline is being considered by India to bring gas reserves at Shwe
field in Block A-1 in offshore Myanmar, as well as volumes that are expected
to be discovered in its adjacent block A-3. In both the blocks, ONGC Videsh
Ltd has 20 per cent stake and GAIL (India) 10 per cent. South Korea's Daewoo
is the operator of both the blocks. Aiyar
also said a Joint Project Team, comprising officials from the oil firms from
the three countries, would be set up for conducting the feasibility study
of the pipeline project. The feasibility study, for which international consultants
would be appointed, would establish the route of the pipeline. According to
Aiyar, the feasibility report is expected in six months time and construction
on the pipeline should hopefully begin next year.
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