Mauritius now has its big annual IT fair: Infotech. What is there to showcase is the big question… For the past couple of years, the event has been a unique opportunity to take stock of our achievements in the field of Information and communications technology (ICT) and also to brood over unfinished business.

Mauritius has a two-pronged strategy for transforming IT into a main pillar of growth: IT-enabled services (ITES), which includes BPO (business process outsourcing), and IT services proper, such as software development. The strategy fits into a new development model that points to a services economy. The sugar industry is in decline whilst textile will continue to face stiff difficulties in the wake of higher head-on competition with the world’s largest garments producers namely, China, India and Pakistan.

Finding alternative sources of revenue is not the only reason for favouring ICT. The country needs a higher growth trajectory. Only a radical revisiting of the current premises can raise the speed limit of the economy. New technologies will drive the re-engineering, firstly, as an activity per se and, secondly, as a key enabler towards higher productivity and efficiency.

Web technologies, for instance, have helped transform the way business is conducted in various ways. The Internet now connects firms to their markets and to suppliers and helps cutting or even eliminating several costs along the supply chain. At the same time, it facilitates the search for new opportunities. Local businesses have yet to step into the Internet economy the big way, though many of their internal operations are now computerised.

This (technology-driven) quest for greater competitiveness in the developed world has created tremendous opportunities for developing countries, which have the relevant set of skills and technical capabilities. India and China stand out in this respect. The former now has an excellent track record in the area of soft skills (software engineering, networking, facility management, IT consulting, telecommunications…) whilst the latter is unbeatable in producing low-cost computer hardware.

European and American firms sourcing IT products and services from the developing world is only part of the story. For the last decade, they have been shipping complete chunks of their front office (customer support, direct marketing…), back-office (accounting functions, payroll administration…) and even sophisticated activities, such as R&D to specialised offshore centres. BPO is now a new reality on the global corporate landscape.

Mauritius wants to have its share of the soft IT and BPO markets. For the past four years, there has been a great policy emphasis on promoting IT and ITES. The vision holds a lot of promises. The challenges are yet as big. First of all, the country needs quality infrastructure and world-class telecommunications services at competitive rates. Connectivity is the lifeblood of the new industries. Broad-band access is now the norm and anything less than that will chase both investors and potential clients off.

Infotech, which takes place over the next three days, should give a glimpse of our achievements in this area. The launching of 3G mobile services by Emtel yesterday is something of a revolution in the whole of Africa. This kind of initiative does contribute a lot to placing the island on the IT global map. But it still remains that Mauritius has taken a huge gamble on the new economy that has yet to pay off.