Obama vs Romney: Who will Indian IT cos prefer?

The global markets will be keenly watching US elections. The race for White House will go down to the wire says a poll prediction.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Som Mittal, president, NASSCOM says it doesn’t matter because the IT industry has done well, when US had a Democratic president and similarly a Republican one. "Irrespective of who comes, I suppose our industry fundamentals are good," he adds.

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Below is the edited transcript of his interview on CNBC-TV18

Q: Who would the Indian IT industry like to see in the White House?

A: Over the years, we have seen it doesn’t matter really because the industry has done well, when we had a Democratic president and similarly a Republican one. I think what really impacts us is how well the economy is doing and also what our customers want. So, irrespective of who comes, I suppose our industry fundamentals are good. US being the important market that we have, we still expect growth to come in.

Q: While none of those legislations actually got passed through the US Senate, there was this uncertainty hanging over Indian IT on whether or not there would actually be a ban or a disincentive as far as off shoring was concerned. So, purely from an uncertainty point of view, would Romney not then be better if he comes to office for Indian IT?

A: You made a good point there. There are many legislations that have just come in, which are part of positioning. They were never supposed to have gone through. But there are a couple of key things that are also in this election, while there is a presidential election, let’s not forget that there is the entire house, which is up for elections, one third of the senate.

If you look at US in the last couple of years, the Congress has not been very productive. Many important bills including Comprehensive Immigration Bill, which are extremely important for the US economy, also haven’t gone through. So, we do hope that the verdict will come decisive. More importantly, Congress decides that they need to tale the country forward.

Now, irrespective of which president comes in and what route they take, the goals are the same. They have to reduce the deficit. They have to get the growth story in. With the growth, the employment will come back and then they need to reestablish US as the preeminent economy the world over. I think for them this job is cut out. So, if you look at the priorities that the president has, it’s far more on local issues of the US to sustain. As long as the US economy does well, our industry would do well also.

You mentioned about many of the bills, I think they are all basically there because of the current unemployment position. If you look at the unemployment, it is 8.2% overall, but in tech it is less than 4%. So, actually those bills will never go through because they all realise that tech is so important and they are short of skills.

Q: Whether it Romney or Obama, from an India point of view, the lobbying, and the campaigning will have to start once again. Besides the change as far as the visa norms are concerned, the visa regime is concerned, what will be the key demands that you would like the new US administration to address on a priority basis?

A: If we didn’t lobby, for them to get the economy back on track is an important one. From our perspective, it will be to get our perspectives out to them. That is to let them know that we are part of the solution and not the problem, we are helping US economy recover, we are helping US become more competitive.

They do need highly skilled professionals. For that, they need to have a more progressive immigration policy than they have right now. By the way this is not just what our demand is, this is the demand of the US corporates as well because they suffer from the current immigration policy that the US has.