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Women seek South Asia business boost
21 January, 2004
Women seek S Asia business boost
By Monica Gupta
BBC correspondent in Delhi
Women entrepreneurs are hoping to lead the way in improving business
relations between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.
Karachi-based Jehan Ara, with family roots in India, owns Enabling
Technologies, a multi-media and web development company in Pakistan.
As President of the Pakistan Software Houses Association she will
head a 23 member Information Technology (IT) delegation to India in
February.
The mission will be to explore opportunities for joint ventures and
collaborations with Indian software firms.
India is an acknowledged world leader in the IT and software industry
and the Pakistanis are hoping to benefit by exchanging ideas.
"We will be meeting with several software companies in India. We are
looking forward to exchanging ideas and exploring possibilities of
setting up joint ventures and research," Jehan Ara told BBC News
Online.
"We feel, there are numerous possibilities of us working together,"
she said.
Ms Ara will not be the only woman in the delegation.
Call centre boom
She will be accompanied by Shaida Saleem, head of the IT committee in
the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI)
and Zunaria Durrani, editor of Spider magazine, a prominent internet
publication in Pakistan.
According to Ms Ara, Pakistan has about 350 IT companies with
revenues of between US$50-100 million dollars but she agrees that the
industry is not as big as India.
"However, the last one year has seen Business Processing Outsourcing
(BPO) really taking off in a big way in Pakistan. Similarly, call
centre operations have also boomed, because, like India, we too have
a good English speaking work force," she says.
Across the border in India, Chandra Garodia, President of the Delhi-
headquartered Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry
(FICCI) Ladies Organisation (FLO) is hoping to lead a 20 member
delegation of women entrepreneurs to Pakistan soon.
She is awaiting official permission from both governments.
"As soon as we are granted permission, we would like to go to
Islamabad and Lahore and meet with industry associations there.
Hostage to hostilities
Until now, Indian businesswomen could only interact with their
Pakistani counterparts in international business events organized in
other countries.
"We now want to make use of the changed political climate to develop
direct links," says Ms Garodia.
Accompanying her would be entrepreneurs like Dr Kusum Ansal, a
director in Ansal Properties, a real estate company owned by her
family.
"My company will be keen to explore avenues of constructing colonies
or shopping malls in Pakistan. We have done construction work in
countries like Russia and Iraq," says Ansal.
The last time Indian women entrepreneurs travelled to Pakistan was in
March 1997 during a South Asian regional summit.
But relations nose-dived following the 1999 fighting in Kashmir
around Kargil.
With the recent thaw in relations, women in both countries are now
looking forward to be directly involved in firming up India-Pakistan
business relations.
source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3415539.stm
