How do you plan to compensate the small software exporters affected by the termination of the tax holiday?
They must not worry, as we are working on a holistic incentive plan for the software companies registered with STPI. This time, we will be offering incentives that may not be directly linked with profits. Rather, those companies will enjoy more benefits that will generate more employment opportunities and set up their operations in smaller cities instead of already crowded metros. There are whole lot of other new schemes, which will soon be announced.
What is the new direction for STPI to meet the emerging software demand in the world markets?
We have been working as a back office for clients in the US and Europe. However, the new focus areas for STPI are to promote the intellectual property (IP) based products for the local software developers, create more jobs in software industry, and earn more wealth for the country. Now we want to move up the value chain and see R&D based growth for the exporters.
So, is STPI as an organization well equipped to help the new breed of exporters and achieve its growth targets?
We are repositioning STPI from a mere physical infrastructure provider to an end-to-end solutions provider for the software exporters. Our new ICT programs are designed to provide integrated infrastructure to small and medium businesses. While the focus of these programs is to enhance productivity and efficiency, particularly in the manufacturing industry, STPI will offer all necessary tech tools to companies covered under these programs.
How will the transformation at STPI help the exporters, particularly the smaller outfits?
We are going to embrace the latest technologies like cloud computing to augment our back-end tech infrastructure. This will help smaller companies conserve capital costs and become more competitive in the marketplace. Among the main features of our transformation will be the change in our incubation model. Now we will be changing our role from a classical incubation service provider to a more effective one, to help companies at every stage of their development. n