By IPS Correspondents
NEW DELHI, May 19 2000 (IPS)

Visiting German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer was “very impressed” with India’s information technology (IT) professionals, but the admiration, it seems, is not mutual.

Ardently wooed by Germany and other European nations, India’s well-known IT talent still prefers higher paid and more reliable jobs in the United States, say industry observers.

The German minister, who began his two-day visit in India’s IT capital, the southern metropolis of Bangalore, denied that he was here on a mission to “hire anyone”.

But in meetings with Indian IT industry representatives, Fischer and German business leaders with him made a strong pitch for their country as the future job destination for Indian IT professionals.

“We want young talented Indians to come to Germany to work with us,” said Joachim Broudre-Groger, director general of economic affairs in the German government.

“There is a full understanding between the federal government and companies in Germany that we need to have people in the IT business to come into Germany and do a good job over there,” Michael Pfeiffer of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce was quoted as saying in published reports from Bangalore.

The Germans tried to allay Indian concerns about the political backlash in Germany to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s decision to throw open the door to foreign IT professionals, specially from India, to make for the shortage of such experts in Germany.

After a meeting with Azim Premji, India’s top IT industry leader who has been ranked among the world’s five richest people, Fischer said he was more convinced that the debate in Germany over the new green card scheme for foreign IT professionals was “against our interests.”

“The irrational debate should stop. We need an opening up of our society. We lag 10 years behind the U.S. We should welcome them (foreign IT experts) and also create the social environment,” Fischer asserted.

Germany is not alone in wooing Indian IT talent. Other senior European political leaders had Indian IT-talent scouting high on their agendas during their visits earlier this year. Among them were Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and Mary Harney, Ireland’s deputy prime minister.

The German decision on IT talent import was followed by Japan’s reported plan to bring in 10,000 Indian IT professionals to plug a shortage of experts.

But Indian IT industry observers have noted that it would not be easy for these countries to compete with the United States as the overseas job destination for Indian experts.

The main reasons are said to be the language barrier for educated Indians who are more comfortable with English, comparatively higher American wages and immigration restrictions.

At present, the much sought after U.S. H1-B visa that entitles professionals to work there takes some three months to be processed. Aware of this, Germany is planning to issue work permits to Indian IT professionals in six weeks, the leading business daily ‘The Economic Times’ was told by unnamed German officials.

The German government will enact a law later this year to ensure pay parity between imported Indian IT experts and German counterparts, ‘The Hindustan Times’ newspaper learnt likewise.

The daily’s sources told it that German companies hiring Indian IT workers would have to guarantee a minimum annual salary of 100,000 DM (about 50,000 U.S. dollars).

However, Indian IT industry analysts here noted that the German offer would not draw the best Indian talent. The United States is still the IT golden mine for Indians. It offers not just jobs, but seemingly limitless opportunities for IT entrepreneurs.

The prestigious ‘Business Week’ magazine, in its latest issue, has ranked three Indian IT entrepreneurs settled in the United States among the world’s top 25 e-business leaders. Indian IT training institutions advertise their courses for young college graduates with visions of future jobs and businesses in the U.S. Silicon Valley.

The United States is also estimated to have far more job opportunities for IT professionals. Analysts cited figures put out by the Information Technology Association of America that there will be some 1.7 million IT jobs in that country this year.

The recent announcement by the American government that it plans to steeply raise the quota for H-1 B visas has also cheered young Indians aspiring to a career in the American IT industry.

India’s IT prowess is for the first time seen to have changed the image of the Indian immigrant in the West who until now was either a low- paid, unskilled worker or an educated technocrat or academic.

IT industry leaders in India, backed by their government, exude confidence that India can become an IT superpower.

“The West created wealth through the Industrial Revolution and West Asia through oil. Now it is India’s turn. They created it by utilising the wealth that nature offered to man, but we will create is by using what’s within ourselves — in the human mind,” says Rajendra Pawar of India’s oldest and best-known IT training institute.

The international rating agency Standard and Poors too noted in a report on India that IT and related services can do for the country what foreign direct investment in the export sector did for South-east and East Asia in the 1990s.

According to one authoritative estimate, India can generate some 90 billion U.S. dollars from the IT industry, including 50 billion dollars in software exports.

The Indian government’s information technology ministry has set a target of a ten-fold increase in software exports to 50 billion dollars by the year 2008.

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