A conclave of global executive search firms on April16 said India’s booming services and software industries need more than two million professionals by 2010 and many could come from overseas. Tom Fuller, managing director of the US-based Espen Fuller consultancy firm, said India’s outsourcing industry needed 1.4 million professionals alone, while its burgeoning information technology sector would need an additional 800,000 skilled workers in the next three years.

India’s outsourcing industry could process 30 percent of US bank transactions by 2010, more than triple the current figure, says the industry’s main lobby group National Association of Software and Services Companies. Foreign financial institutions and firms have been moving back office, call centre and other software-related work to India to take advantage of its English-speaking, lower-paid employees and cut costs.

India’s business process outsourcing sector, which includes customer call centres and services such as accounting and payroll management, has created about 100,000 jobs in the past two years alone, more than doubling the industry’s total workforce to over 170,000.

The meeting, which ended on April 16 in the Goa capital of Panaji, also said India had become a paradise for professional head-hunters. Economists also say India will soon represent two-thirds of the international “offshore market” — jobs done outside a client’s region. Peter Mukherjea, head of the India-based INX Global Executive search firm, said India would also need more top executives than it currently had to spur economic growth beyond the current nine percent. The convention included representatives from companies from 27 countries including Australia, Britain, France, Germany, India, Italy, Singapore, Spain and the United States, organisers said.