Bangalore: An aggressive China with its hardware strength is just three years behind India's software industry, with its heavy investments on improving English in its people and building huge capacities in higher education, a top Infosys official said today (July 27, 2004).

"I think the gap (between India and China) is about three years," Infosys Chairman and Chief Mentor N R Narayana Murthy told reporters at the launch of its Campus Connect programme.

"China is extremely aggressive in bridging the gap in English and also the Government is investing heavily in building capacities in higher education, that is engineering students," he said.

Murthy said China is three years behind if India does not do anything to improve the gap.

"If we as a country, the industry, Government and the people put our heads together, perhaps we could increase the gap, may be five years, 10 years or beyond," he said.

Murthy, whose firm has a China subsidiary, said contrary to belief, China has project management skills with its hardware industry and has to improve its English knowledge.

"There is considerable domain expertise. I think it is a question of catching up with English and a tweaking a bit of project management," he said.

"We are at a critical juncture, there is great probability, that countries like China, Brazil and Mexico which have large population, they could be big competitors for India," Murthy said, adding that "quality of manpower need to be improved by India if we have to be ahead of competition".