Sunday, June 19 2005 15:35 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Dependence of Indian software exporters on North American market is coming down gradually, the Electronics and Computer Software Promotion Council (ESC) has said.

In 2004-05, North America - mainly US and Canada - accounted for 61.10 per cent of India's total export of computer software and IT Enabled services (ITES) during 2004-05 as against 61.68 per cent in 2003-04, according to the provisional data compiled by ESC.

"Our effort is to further bring down the dependence on the North America market for software export and to spread widely to other destinations including opening up of newer markets.

"The very fact that we could reduce the dependence on the US market over the years from 98 per cent to a more reasonable figure of about 60 per cent is a good achievement," ESC executive director D K Sareen said.

He said that the effort of the council would be to peg the North American market to somewhere in the vicinity of 50 per cent in the long run, without in any way affecting India's lead position in the growing US market.

According to the provisional estimates of ESC value of export to the North American market grew from Rs 35,777 crore ($7.7 billon) in 2003-04 to Rs 47,231 crore ($10.1 billion) in 2004-05. This works out to a solid growth in export of 32 per cent (35.25 per cent in dollar terms).

European Union countries have occupied the second slot in the overall software and ITES export from the country. The market share has grown up to 26.86 per cent in 2004-05 from 25.09 per cent in 2003-04.

In absolute terms, software and ITES export stood at Rs 20,763 crore ($ 4.6 billion) in 2004-05 as against Rs 14.550 crore ($3.16 billion) in 2003-04. This works out to be a growth of 42.70 per cent in rupee terms and 46.20 per cent in dollar terms.

The third largest destination for software and IT export was Japan, Korea and other Far East countries. In absolute terms, export to these destinations has marginally declined in 2004-05 to Rs 3092 crore ($689 million) from Rs 3,110 crore ($676 million) in 2003-04.

The fourth largest market for Indian IT and ITeS exports was Singapore, Hong Kong and other countries in the region. Software and ITES export to this region has increased from Rs 1,950 crore ($424 million) in 2003-04 to Rs 2,257 crore ($503 million). This works out to an increase in value terms to the extent of 15.72 per cent (18.56 per cent in dollar terms).

The fifth position was occupied by Australia and other Oceanic Countries with an export turnover of Rs 1,117 crore ($249 million) in 2004-05, registering a growth of 49.27 per cent (52.93 per cent in dollar terms).

The other regions, contributing to 3.69 per cent of India's export of software and ITES in 2004-05 included Middle East countries (Rs 1,117 crore), African countries (Rs 1,017 crore), non EU European countries (RS 546 crore), Latin America (Rs 144 crore) and Russia and CIS countries (Rs 14 crore).