Gitex grows in stature

With a spurt in the growth of exhibitors, trade visitors, vendors and visitors, the fifth edition of the annual ICT event, Gitex India 2006, proved to be a huge success with exhibitors from US, UK, China, Russia, Malaysia and Dubai taking part in it.

This year's Gitex had, in addition to the usual software and hardware exhibitions, a job fair and parallel conferences hosted by Nasscom, HySEA, TiE and CII.

Claiming that the results were encouraging, K Ratna Prabha, secretary, Information Technology and Communications department, said, "The total number of visitors saw a rise from around 25,000 last year to 51,000 this year."

The satisfying part was that 20 companies had taken part in the job fair in which about 6,000 were shortlisted from around 50,000 applicants, she added.

A total of 16 companies were handed over memoranda of understanding for allotment of 103 acres of land in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam during this year's Gitex.

The 16 companies are projected to invest Rs 656.2 crore and generate 34,416 jobs in the next three years. The companies are projected to make an annual turnover of Rs 2,221.4 crore.

The government's announcement of refund of four per cent VAT (value added tax) resulted in over 41,575 people flocking to computer stalls as against the 17,250 registered last year. They also registered about Rs 3.5 crore sales.

There was a 100 per cent increase in the number of vendors from the 20 who participated last year to 43 this year. While the number of exhibitors increased from 69 to 95, Gitex attracted 9,873 trade visitors as against the 7,983 in the previous edition.