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Maran sees telecoms, IT foreign investment boom

Planned foreign investment in India's booming telecoms and information technology sector is expected to double to $22 billion in 2006, as global majors focus increasingly on the country.

"The world is starting to look at India seriously," Dayanidhi Maran, India’s IT minister told Reuters in an interview.

Almost $9 billion in planned investment has been announced this year, including $3 billion by SemIndia and chipmaker AMD, $1.7 billion by Microsoft Corp and more than $1 billion each by Intel Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc.

India is also the world's fastest-growing major mobile market and Maran said he expected the number of new wireless subscribers to hit between 4 million and 5 million a month early in 2006.

Maran said more consolidation in the mobile market was "inevitable" as more foreign players entered.

But he said the government had made no decision on merging its Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., India's top telecoms firm by sales, and state-run Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd.

BSNL had suggested to the government that it acquire MTNL.

Maran also sees strong growth in business services and IT, saying an industry study forecasting 28 percent growth a year to $60 billion in exports by 2010 may be too conservative.

"I think this growth (forecast) for the IT sector should be definitely more bullish," he said.

(www.centralchronicle.com)

 
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