Speaking at a seminar organised at the Johannesburg Securities Exchange by Frontier Advisory, a company specialising in business links between India, China and South Africa, the envoy from India told local businessmen that his office was dealing with at least 3,000 serious queries from Indian firms about investing or trading in South Africa.
Doraiswami said Indian companies were successful in Africa because they were experts in finding low costs solutions to local challenges. The absence of infrastructure was also not a limiting factor for them.
Echoing Doraiswami's view, Tata-led telecom operator Neotel's CEO Ajay Panday said that the Indian mindset was one of always being achievers to become part of the solution and not a part of the problem.
Neotel also believed in building local capacity and the the first graduates have just come out from the company's Telecommunications Academy, which was now also drawing attention from higher education institutions in South Africa, Panday added.
Explaining his company's reasoning behind the seminar, Abdullah Verachia, Division Head of Frontier Advisory, said India's high growth economy was resulting in a new generation of companies entering the global market -- India's emerging multinationals.
"These firms are fast becoming leaders in their sectors and forging new business models in emerging and frontier economies.
Indian firms in pharmaceuticals, business process outsourcing, IT, and automotive manufacturing are rapidly expanding in Africa, a continent which is increasingly attracting Asian investment," Verachia added.
