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Ajita Shashidhar

`Infosys is the first Indian company to have bought space at the Cyber Tower. It has acquired 25,000 sq. ft. to set up a disaster recovery service centre.'

CHENNAI, June 15

THE Government of Mauritius is confident of leasing out at least 50 per cent space in the 40,000 sq. m Cyber Tower complex, of its 172-acre Ebene Cybercity project, within the first one year of operation.

While IT major Microsoft has acquired around 20,000 sq. ft. space to set up its regional centre for marketing and development, Munich Reinsurance and PricewaterhouseCoopers have leased an acre of land each.

Similarly, Hewlett-Packard South Africa is also willing to invest in the region of $1 million to set up a data and disaster recovery system.

The project, which is an initiative of the Government of Mauritius to offer a knowledge park providing world-class facilities for ICT companies, is being set up with technical and financial assistance from the Indian Government.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Devendra Choudhury, IT Adviser to the Prime Minister of Mauritius and the Chief Executive Officer, Business Parks of Mauritius Ltd (BPML), who is in India to market the project to the Indian IT companies in association with CB Richard Ellis India, who are the marketing consultants of the project, said, "Infosys is the first Indian company to have bought space at the Cyber Tower. It has acquired 25,000 sq. ft. to set up a disaster recovery service centre."

The other Indian companies, which have shown interest in the project are Satyam, Pentasoft and Wipro, according to Mr Choudhury.

Mr Choudhury also mentioned that they were in the midst of negotiations with other international IT giants such as IBM, Oracle and Accenture to set up facilities at the Ebene Cybercity.

Mr Anshuman Magazine, Managing Director, South Asia, CB Richard Ellis, said that it was positioning the project as a haven especially for the IT-enabled services (ITES) sector, considering the good infrastructure facilities the country has to offer.

"Moreover, Mauritius is a safe, politically stable country, and offers good quality of life," says Mr Magazine.

The other advantage that the country offers to the investors, according to Mr Magazine, is the bilingual manpower, which is conversant in both English and French.

"This helps the ITES companies a great deal to cater to the French speaking nations, as setting up facilities in Europe is an expensive proposition."

Adding to Mr Magazine's statement, Mr Choudhury of BPML, said, considering that Mauritius is a financial hub with as many as 15,000 financial offshore companies based here, they are trying to attract call centre and BPOs catering to financial services, banking, insurance and so on.

He also mentioned that though the country was not really a tax haven, it was offering a number of tax incentives such as zero per cent corporate up to 2008 and five per cent for a lifetime. The Government has also waived import duty on hardware and software for the investors.

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