India's IT Exports to US Wildly Exaggerated

[RiazHaq]

Haq's Musings: India's IT Exports Figures Highly Exaggerated

A 2005 study by US General Accounting Office (GAO) found that Indian government's figures for software and technology exports to the United States were 20 times higher than the US figures for import of the same from India.

U.S. General Accounting Office looked at the 2003 data showing the United States reported $420 million in unaffiliated imports of BPT (business, professional, and technical) services from India, while India reported approximately $8.7 billion in exports of affiliated and unaffiliated BPT services to the United States.


US-India IT Trade Discrepancy Source: GAO
The GAO found at least five definitional and methodological factors that contribute to the difference between U.S. and Indian data on BPT services. First, India and the United States follow different practices in accounting for the earnings of temporary Indian workers residing in the United States. Second, India defines certain services, such as software embedded on computer hardware, differently than the United States. Third, India and the United States follow different practices for counting sales by India to U.S.-owned firms located outside of the United States. The United States follows International Monetary Fund standards for each of these factors. Fourth, BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis) does not report country-specific data for particular types of services due to concerns about the quality of responses it receives from firms when they allocate their affiliated imports to detailed types of services. As a result, U.S. data on BPT services include only unaffiliated imports from India, while Indian data include both affiliated and unaffiliated exports. Fifth, other differences, such as identifying all services importers, may also contribute to the data gap.

In theory, India follows what is known as BPM 6 (MSITS) reporting method for software and information-enabled technology services (ITES) which counts sales to all multinationals, earning of overseas offices, salaries of non-immigrant overseas workers as India's exports. In practice, India violates it. BPM 6 allows the salaries of first year ofmigrant workers to be included in a country's service exports. India continuously and cumulatively adds all the earnings of its migrants to US in its software exports. If 50,000 Indians migrate on H1B visas each year, and they each earn $50,000 a year, that's a $2.5 billion addition to their exports each year. Cumulatively over 10 years, this would be $25 billion in exports year after year and growing.

There has neither been any acknowledgement nor any correction of the Indian government's methodology for reporting software and IT services exports since the GAO report was published in 2005. This raises serious questions about the accuracy of India's claims of $60 billion to $70 billion IT software and service exports being currently reported. If the 20X exaggeration still persists, the Indian IT exports could be as little as $3 billion to $4 billion today based on the US methodology.


Pakistan IT Exports BPM 5 Method Source: State Bank of Pakistan

Unlike the Reserve Bank of India's claimed BPM 6 methodology, the State Bank of Pakistan uses a much more conservative BPM 5 reporting system which does not include sales to multinationals located in Pakistan and earning of overseas offices and salaries of non-immigrant Pakistani overseas workers in Pakistan's exports figures. If the State Bank switched to BPM 6 method, Pakistan's software and IT exports of $294 million for 2012-2013 could easily become at least $5 billion.

Haq's Musings: India's IT Exports Figures Highly Exaggerated

 

[Srinivas]

This thread is going to be trolled for sure.....

 

[[Bregs]]

lol the article starts from the data of 2003

 

[Sugarcane]

A decade old article damn Pakistanis are desperate

Better way is to refute allegation with logic

.............In theory, India follows what is known as BPM 6 (MSITS) reporting method for software and information-enabled technology services (ITES) which counts sales to all multinationals, earning of overseas offices, salaries of non-immigrant overseas workers as India's exports. In practice, India violates it. BPM 6 allows the salaries of first year ofmigrant workers to be included in a country's service exports. India continuously and cumulatively adds all the earnings of its migrants to US in its software exports...................This raises serious questions about the accuracy of India's claims of $60 billion to $70 billion IT software and service exports being currently reported. If the 20X exaggeration still persists, the Indian IT exports could be as little as $3 billion to $4 billion today based on the US methodology..........

 

[Sugarcane]

India follows BPM 6 (MSITS) and violates it, says who..Pakistanis?

Bases of allegation is GAO (Government Accountability Office - US) report

 

[[Bregs]]

Tata Consultancy Services alone has profit of 12786 cr on sales of 49000/- cr

Tata Consultancy Services Profit & Loss account, Tata Consultancy Services Financial Statement & Accounts

Infosys has profit of 9421 cr on sales of 41000 cr

Infosys - Last Fiscal | Financials | About Us

These are just 2 companies i mentioned and many many more are left, both these cos are dependent on there revenues form exports earnings

 

[Fireurimagination]

Bases of allegation is GAO (Government Accountability Office - US) report

The GAO in 2003 (a decade ago) said that are there are differences in figures of what India claims it exports and what US says it imports and that is because of reasons such as different accounting practises, different definitions of services, Indian data includes both affiliated and unaffiliated exports etc. It's doesn't say India violates BPM 6 (MSITS) and fudges figures, that is RiazHaq's fantasy that too a decade late one.

 

[Robin_k]

According to article there are 5 reason for this and one of them say this

The treatment of services provided by temporary foreign workers in the
United States is likely a significant factor contributing to the difference
between U.S. and Indian data, according to Indian officials. Some Indian
officials estimated that in past years, approximately 40 percent of India’s
exports to the United States of services corresponding to BPT services
were delivered by temporary Indian workers in the United States. For
example, for 2002, RBI found that approximately 47 percent of India’s
global exports of computer services occurred through the on-site delivery
of services by temporary Indian workers

and in conclusion it say that

Some of this
difference in data can be attributed to varying definitions of BPT services,
but some also appears to be due to incomplete U.S. data. BEA has been
seeking various ways to improve the overall quality of U.S. services trade
data, but our test of whether they had identified BPT service importers
indicated that they were not identifying all U.S. importers of services

what my Pakistani friends say about this

 

[RiazHaq]

Lots of inflated claims of Indian "accomplishments" in America have been debunked by Times of India Washington correspondent Chidanand Rajghatta.

It seems exaggerating achievements is a common Indian trait. Even the Indian government does it shamelessly as evident from highly inflated IT exports figure.

Here's a Times of India story on Indian exaggeration of Indian professionals in US:

It's an Internet myth that has taken on a life of its own. No matter how often you slay this phony legend, it keeps popping up again like some hydra-headed beast.

But on Monday, the Indian government itself consecrated the oft-circulated fiction as fact in Parliament, possibly laying itself open to a breach of privilege. By relaying to Rajya Sabha members (as reported in The Times of India) a host of unsubstantiated and inflated figures about Indian professionals in US, the government also made a laughing stock of itself.

The figures provided by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development Purandeshwari included claims that 38 per cent of doctors in US are Indians, as are 36 per cent of NASA scientists and 34 per cent of Microsoft employees.

There is no survey that establishes these numbers, and absent a government clarification, it appears that the figures come from a shop-worn Internet chain mail that has been in circulation for many years. Spam has finally found its way into the Indian parliament dressed up as fact.

Attempts by this correspondent over the years to authenticate the figures have shown that it is exaggerated, and even false. Both Microsoft and NASA say they don't keep an ethnic headcount. While they acknowledge that a large number of their employees are of Indian origin, it is hardly in the 30-35 per cent range.

In a 2003 interview with this correspondent, Microsoft chief Bill Gates guessed that the number of Indians in the engineering sections of the company was perhaps in the region of 20 per cent, but he thought the overall figure was not true. NASA workers say the number of Indians in the organization is in the region of 4-5 per cent, but the 36 per cent figure is pure fiction.

The number of physicians of Indian-origin in the US is a little easier to estimate. The Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) has 42,000 members, in addition to around 15,000 medical students and residents. There were an estimated 850,000 doctors in the US in 2004. So, conflating the figures, no more than ten per cent of the physicians in US maybe of Indian-origin – and that includes Indian-Americans – assuming not everyone is registered with AAPI.

These numbers in themselves are remarkable considering Indians constitute less than one per cent of the US population. But in its enthusiasm to spin the image of the successful global Indian to its advantage, the government appears to have milked a long-discredited spam - an effort seen by some readers as the work of a lazy bureaucrat and an inept minister.

The story has attracted withering scrutiny and criticism on the Times of India's website, with most readers across the world trashing it. "The minister should be hauled up by the house for breach of privilege of parliament (by presenting false information based on hearsay). We Indians are undoubtedly one of the most successful ethnic groups in USA, be it in Medicine, Engineering, Entrepreneurship. BUT, that does not translate to those ridiculous numbers that have been presented....this is a circulating e-mail hoax," wrote in Soumya from USA, who said he worked at the NASA facility in Ames, California, and the number was nowhere near what was mentioned in the figures given to Parliament.

India rising in US: Govt falls victim to net hoax - Times Of India

 

[Not Sure]

Dude, we are pushing to 2014, and this is an article dated March 2008... you must have been in your 50s in those good old days...

Try to stay a little updated man, don't let your age slow you down

 

[WAR-rior]

The GAO in 2003 (a decade ago) said that are there are differences in figures of what India claims it exports and what US says it imports and that is because of reasons such as different accounting practises, different definitions of services, Indian data includes both affiliated and unaffiliated exports etc. It's doesn't say India violates BPM 6 (MSITS) and fudges figures, that is RiazHaq's fantasy that too a decade late one.

And you expect Mr. Haq to understand this. This articles are more for the hatred towards India rather than facts and figures.

Look at the video. How their fellow pakistanis are unconvinced about the extent Mr. Haq talks for Indian case.

 

[Srinivas]

And you expect Mr. Haq to understand this. This articles are more for the hatred towards India rather than facts and figures.

Look at the video. How their fellow pakistanis are unconvinced about the extent Mr. Haq talks for Indian case.

@RiazHaq You should have listened the guys sitting next to you on Mars Mission of India, It also about symbolism and moral boosting.

 

[WAR-rior]

@RiazHaq You should have listened the guys sitting next to you on Mars Mission of India, It also about symbolism and moral boosting.

Thats what he doesnt want to digest. No anti India person will want that to happen. to understand that sentiment you need to be a liberal and not any fanatic.

 

[RiazHaq]

@RiazHaq You should have listened the guys sitting next to you on Mars Mission of India, It also about symbolism and moral boosting.

Blowing billions on symbolism doesn't help Indians who make up the world's largest population of poor, hungry, illiterate and sick people most of whom are still forced to defecate in the open. In fact, the situation of an average Indian is far worse than that of an average Sub-Saharan African.

Haq's Musings: 63 Years After Independence, India Remains Home to World's Largest Population of Poor, Hungry and Illiterates

 

[Srinivas]

Blowing billions on symbolism doesn't help Indians who make up the world's largest population of poor, hungry, illiterate and sick people most of whom are still forced to defecate in the open. In fact, the situation of an average Indian is far worse than that of an average Sub-Saharan African.

Haq's Musings: 63 Years After Independence, India Remains Home to World's Largest Population of Poor, Hungry and Illiterates

Great !!!!

Do you even know what is the cost of the project??

It is 400 crores and GOI spends lakhs of crores on welfare schemes.

You should have studied the advantages of the space technologies that offer to Millions of people in India before you raised those sick comments.