April 01, 2002

    In a major initiative to position and promote Indian IT&Telecom prowess in Latin America specifically in Columbia, the Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Communications & IT, Shri Pramod Mahajan is leading a high-powered official delegation to Columbia from today, 1^st April, 2002 till 4^th April. The key objective of the visit is to identify inputs in IT&Telecom that would roadmap new initiatives in critical areas of knowledge sharing, human resource development, promote joint ventures and collaborations. Shri Mahajan’s visit will also attempt to create new initiatives for Indian corporates in the field of technological development, product development and trade and market development. The visit of the Minister is likely to result in few Agreements being signed between the two countries to strengthen ICT cooperation. The Minister is visiting Columbia at the invitation of the President H.E. Dr. Andres Pastrana Arango.

    During the visit, Shri Mahajan will have extensive discussions with the Minister of Communications, Dr. Anjela Montoya Holguin, Dr. Anjela Maria Orozco, Minister of External Trade and will also call on the President of Columbia. The Minister is expected to have extensive discussion and interaction with the Indo-Columbian Forum on Information Technology and Telecommunications. The Forum is considered to be an important platform for strengthening bilateral initiatives in IT&Telecom. At the Forum’s meeting, leading IT corporates from India are expected to make presentations to their counterparts from Columbia. From India, the presentations are likely to be made by Dr. Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM, Mr. Arun Kumar of Hughes Software Systems Ltd., and Mr. P. Rajendran of NIIT. The Columbian presentations are likely to be made on behalf of the Federation of Software Industries of Columbia, the Engineering Faculty of Javeriana University and Coinvertir (Columbian Investment Promotion Body).

    The key areas which would be looked into for strategic cooperation between the two countries include cooperation in the software sector focussing on expanding access to information infrastructure, promoting use of ICT in education and training, facilitating joint ventures in electronics hardware industry, research and development for specialised electronics and technology development. Discussions are also likely to focus on creating initiatives in ICT education between the two countries with the likelihood of cooperation in setting up state-of-art telecom training centres. The two countries are also likely to discuss the issue of IT security. In this regard, there would be efforts to facilitate measures for the prevention and control of cybercrime and a mutual recognition and inter operability of electronic signatures.

    The Telecom sector will be an important area for discussion as far as promoting bilateral initiatives. Discussions would seek cooperation in the areas of telecom equipment manufacturing, R&D cooperation and consultancy for telecom products and projects. Emphasis will be laid on outlining initiatives for joint venture and turn-key project opportunities for Indian companies in the areas of manufacturing telecom equipment, telephone instruments and optical transmission fibre equipment.

    The visit of Shri Mahajan is considered extremely important in the background of initiatives undertaken by Columbia in the field of the ICT industry. The country has recently initiated the Connectivity Agenda with the key objective of expanding information infrastructure, promoting use of ICT in education and training, encouraging use of ICT in business and generating national content. The connectivity agenda also aims to take Government online. These initiatives of the Government of Columbia are being viewed as tremendous market opportunity for Indian Telecom&IT companies. Shri Mahajan is being accompanied by senior officials of the Ministry of Communications&IT and industry representatives from the IT&Telecom industry in India.