Andhra's IT exports up 27% in HY '06

Govt upbeat about logging in higher growth

IT exports from Andhra Pradesh during the first half of the current financial year registered a 27.02 per cent growth to touch Rs 3,930 crore as compared to Rs 3,094 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Though the growth figures are nowhere near the 64 per cent annual growth in IT exports witnessed during the year 2004-05 in the state, the IT department officials are not considering it as an indication of slowdown in the state IT sector.

"Normally, most IT companies furnish the information of their overseas contracts to trade bodies such as Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) only during the fourth quarter as they will be preoccupied with firming up contracts and completing the deals. Therefore, the actual growth in the IT sector will be known only at the end of the fourth quarter," C S Rao, IT advisor to the Andhra Pradesh government and CEO of APInvest, told Business Standard, anticipating much higher growth this time around too.

It may be recalled that the software exports from Andhra Pradesh grew 64.5 per cent reaching Rs 8,270 crore for 2004-05, according to STPI-Hyderabad.

Meanwhile, the half yearly figures available with STPI-Hyderabad also show that the share of ITES in the total exports rose to 46.49 per cent as compared to the 44.54 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal. The ITES exports in the first six-month period stood at Rs 1,827 crore as compared to Rs 1,378 crore in the corresponding period in 2004-05.

As for the quarter-on-quarter performance, the IT exports from the state during the second quarter have come down to Rs 1,890 crore from Rs 2,040 crore in the first quarter of the present fiscal. Sources say the performance in October and November, 2005, is in line with the downward trend.

In terms of year-on-year growth in the IT sector in 2004-05, the state stood first surpassing Tamil Nadu and Karnataka whose software exports posted a growth rate of 40.50 and 52 per cent respectively.

If the same trend continues, Andhra Pradesh will soon equal Tamil Nadu in terms of export volumes. Tamil Nadu's IT exports stood at Rs 10,703.10 crore while Karnataka reached Rs 27,000 crore mark in 2004-05.