IT industry - A future gem

Development of the country ought to be backed by improved IT infrastructure. SL is still in a primary stage when IT literacy is concerned compared to the developed part of the world, hence this sector will have good prospects in the future with holdings like PC House taking the initiative. The entire world is digitizing and networking and there fore IT sector will have prospects in the country in all short, medium and long term.
FYI http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/0​6/28/bus24.asp

Currently most of the SL ICT firms stay small and private. But there's a list of IT companies in the 'should get listed' list.

PCH has already taken a lot of initiatives to address this need.
- A complete hospital management system
PCH is nearing completion of a turnkey Hospital Management System at the Sri Jayewardenepura Hospital.

- PCH together with the Ministry of Public Administration to facilitate the nation’s progress to achieve e-Governance - ‘eBMD’ (Electronic Birth, Marriage & Death Certificate) Project.

- Increasing IT deploy over 6,000 school IT labs and ‘Nenasalas’ island wide.

- PCH has also implemented many higher education ICT
projects - installing servers, software, Local Area Networks, cabling and configuring entire university labs in many leading national universities.

- Mobile phone market - Karbonn Mobile

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Also

http://www.cse.lk/cmt/uplo​ad_cse_announcements/11713​09770777_.pdf

ECL is a company who seeks for growth with very smart strategic alliances with well established companies in the sector.
ECL now gets in to MOU with one of the leading ICT companies in the town MIT.
With this alliance they can jointly provide remote health care facilities to the local as well as regional international markets which is a huge leap taken by the company.
With the system doctors will be able to provide initial consultancy to the general public who are in the rural areas and they are planning to approach countries like Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal Pakistan with the new enhancements. This is a system which will change the history of typical medical visits by enabling the doctors to provide accurate and faster treatments to emergency patients remotely. Valuable stuff! Essentials to enhance the living standards of a rapidly growing country like us!

This is the future, innovation is rewarding. As investors I think we should pay more attention on the ICT sector as the country has a huge gap in this sector currently.

CEO of ECL Asanga Karunaratne said that the second largest shareholder of the company British American Technologies has several new plans to promote ECL as a leading medical service provider.

“We even have plans to go into leisure sector which we will disclose soon” he said. As at 31 march 2011, being the largest shareholders of ECL Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation had a nearly 23% stake of ECL, whilst British American Technologies had a 22.45 stake.

http://print.dailymirror.l​k/business/127-local/49054​-slic-not-after-fake-diamo​nds-official.html

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Sri Lanka planning plug and play IT park
July 05, 2011 (LBO) - Sri Lanka is evaluating two sites to set up an information technology park for firms to quickly set up shop, where two foreign universities are also likely to be located, an official said.

Reshan Dewapura, head of the government's Information Communications Technology Agency said the government evaluating two sites outside Sri Lanka's capital Colombo to build the park.

Sri Lanka's IT and business process outsourcing industry now earns about 400 million dollars in export and the industry is targeting a billion dollars in foreign revenues by 2015.

http://www.lbo.lk/fullstor​y.php?nid=51045945

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ICT is growing... http://print.dailymirror.l​k/business/127-local/49146​.html

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Network Communications a leading IT and mobile solution provider in Sri Lanka is on an expansion with around Rs 75 million investment.

Network Communications (Pvt ) Ltd, Chief Executive Officer Larry Adams said, having understood the potential in the IT and mobile industry in Sri Lanka, they will be expanding their footprint with the construction of fifty branches islandwide.
http://www.dailynews.lk/20​11/07/05/bus22.asp

I have positive feelings towards the ICT sector

Unfortunately CSE doesn't have any significant IT companies.

Also I've heard that IT workforce growth rate is going down. That means it's hard to find skilled people who can do the stuff. IT companies on recruitment drive should know that.

One major risk in this sector is the brain drain of IT resources. As IT resources are highly paid in places like Middle East and Asia Pacific etc. This would become a major factor for Sri Lankan IT firms once the world economy kicks back to place and worldwide firm go on the recruitment drive.

This is not a buy/sell/hold recommendation please do your own analysis before investing.

If the agreement works according to the plans with London Stock Exchange(LSE) can we buy shares of MIT(Millenium IT) in CSE ?

Dont see much of a future for the IT sector however i could be wrong