Japan Pm Proposes Major It Initiative For India

Japan Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori unveiled a Japan-India Pro- motion and Co-operation Initia-tive on his one-day visit to India's IT capital. As part of the the initiative, the Japanese government will despatch an economic mission to India in end October led by president of Keidanren, Japan Federation of Economic Organi- sations and chairman of Japan-India Business Co-operation Committee. In January next year, the Japan External Trade Organi- sation will send a group of representatives from the small and medium scale enterprises, and each of these missions is expected to visit Bangalore also. Mori said Japan has drawn up a comprehensive assistance package extending a total of approximately $15 billion over the next five years in a bid to take a lead in the promotion of IT use among developing countries, with particular emphasis on Asia. Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna has suggested that Japan could help in creating an "IT Combinat" in Bangalore, a one-stop centre that could house telecom, software, IC design, manufacturing and merchandising companies; language training centres and an institute of m-commerce. "Two Japanese delegations are coming here, one in the third week of October and the other on November 1 and 2 as a part of our initiative to strengthen our economic and business relationship,'' Krishna said. The Karnataka government has also sought Japanese co-operation for the Mass Rapid Transport System project in the state, Krishna said. The Japanese PM visited the Infosys and Wipro campus style facilities. While at Infosys, Mori planted a peach tree and teed off on the lush in-house golf course. In the second rung of initiatives, the Japanese government intends to promote exchange of human resources. "In concrete terms, we will expand our training programmes for Indian engineers on Japanese business practices and the Japanese language to accommodate 1,000 trainees over the next three years,'' Mori said. Japan has also agreed to start dialogue between the two countries on policy issues like e-governance and e-commerce and vice ministerial dialogue is due to start in October. In addition, Japan also intends to invite Indian ministers and senior officials to come over and hold an India-Japan IT summit. "I can see great potential in promoting close dialogue and co-operation with India in this field as part of the global appeal issued at the G8 summit. India possesses high software technology that leads the world and embraces rich and prominent human resources. Japan has one of the largest markets in the world for high technology and manufacturing which will strongly complement India's strengths,'' he said. Mori said that the current co-operation between Japan and India remains low-profile compared with its great potential and that his administration has been pursuing rapid economic reform with IT as one of its central pillars. ``Infotech was among our top priorities in the Kyushu-Okinawa Summit and the discussions there were compiled into the Okinawa Chapter calling for global co-operation encompassing governments and private sector in individual countries, and international organisations,'' Mori said.