Celtic Tiger seeks a passage to India RASHMEE ROSHAN LALL [ Saturday, November 26, 2005 11:46:40 pm TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
DUBLIN: Ireland, Europe's fastest-growing economy and the world's largest software exporter, is launching its biggest initiative yet to "connect with India", the emerging power of the east, in a high-stakes bid to sustain and share the profits of high-tech industry, Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern has told TOI.
Ahern, who travels to India in mid-January with a huge flotilla of Ireland's high-tech businessmen, educationists and cabinet ministers, unveiled plans for a unique R&D "partnership programme"between Irish and Indian universities; a strong push for "two-way investment"; a valuable swapping of ideas on intellectual property rights issues and an all-weather invitation to Bollywood to use the Emerald Isle as its low-tax, European home.
The Irish PM's visit to Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore is thought to underline the so-called Celtic Tiger's determination to harness high-tech Indian knowledge and linguistic resources rather than see India as a competitor in the lower-value, lower-skilled global call-centre industry.
Call centre jobs in Ireland, which all but pioneered the industry in the early 90s, have increasingly been leaking away to lower-cost, English-speaking locations such as India, but Ahern's government insists it is determined to see India as a partner not a competitor.
Economists believe any new Indo-Irish high-tech pact will enable the two former British colonies to commandeer and clean up the profits in niche, specialised, sunshine sectors such as software exports, bio-tech and pharmaceuticals.
The India focus comes almost exactly a year after Ireland led a similar initiative with China. It prestigiously places Asia's two emerging nations at virtual parity in the reckoning of Europe's miracle economy, which has boasted 7 to 7.5% growth for a decade; a low inflation rate of 2.3% and low unemployment of 4.3%, as well as the cachet of being the software hub of 800 of the planet's largest multi-nationals.
Ahern said he regretted not being able, so far, to "build up as close a relationship with India as with China". The prime minister said that it was increasingly important for "more and more of our universities and info-tech institutes to build links with India".
The university partnership programme to be launched by Ahern is considered unique in Europe. It will see a steady traffic between Ireland and India of PhD students in high-tech disciplines including bio-technology.
They will work on joint doctoral projects and highly-marketable Indo-Irish research.
Ireland's education minister Mary Hanafin told this paper her government was now looking to attract "top research students"from four Asian countries identified by Europe's miracle economy as crucial to the world economy – India, China, South Korea and Japan.
In an indication that Europe's success story may increasingly revolve around the crème de la crème of Indian knowledge-workers, Hanafin, who will travel to India with her prime minister, said Ireland wanted to welcome "a very tiny percentage of students who leave India and China"to study and work in Ireland.
Ahern added, "We believe there is a tremendous intellectual property rights system in India, we can build on that".