GE to boost software, finance services in India
GE to boost software, finance services in India
NEW DELHI (Reuters): Diversified firm General Electric is
looking to expand its software and financial services business in
India to take advantage of a vast pool of domestic talent, its
chairman John F Welch said on Saturday.
"We are in less capital intensive businesses (in India), we
are expanding our laboratories, expanding our software
businesses....the dream of intellectual capital in India is
coming through faster and bigger than we ever thought," Welch
told reporters after a meeting with leading Indian businessmen.
The firm was also planning to expand its financial services
business in the country and was looking at the recent opening of
India's insurance sector as an avenue of growth, he said.
India allowed private companies to enter the life and non-life
insurance businesses in August. It also allowed foreign firms to
enter the sector through joint ventures with private Indian firms
subject to a foreign equity cap of 26 percent.
GE Capital, the world's largest non bank finance company, is
already a large player in India's financial markets and operates
an offshore call-center outside Delhi.
Welch will inaugurate GE's largest research and development
(R&D) facility outside the United States on Sunday, The GE India
Technology Center in Bangalore. The facility is expected to be
the company's largest R&D center by 2001.
GE is a diversified conglomerate with interests in power
generation, financial services, aircraft engines, transport,
medical systems, plastics, lighting and appliances and had
revenues of $112 billion in 1999, a company statement said.
Welch, however, warned that India could fail to exploit its
intellectual capital and fall behind in the digital age if it
failed to reform its cash-strapped and creaking power sector.
"When you talk about digitizing India, the massive amounts of
power that you will require...is beyond belief...we made more gas
turbines in the third quarter of this year than in any single
year in our entire history but the U.S. was short of power," he
said.
Small computers and server farms that drive digitization are
extremely power hungry, he said.
India needed to push harder for private investments in the
power sector, he said.
GE's current combined sales in India were worth about one
billion dollars, he said. Welch added that the rate of growth had
been below expectations but India remained a market with great
potential.