Kolkata: The city has scored over National Capital Region (NCR), Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune in a study conduct­ed by global business infor­mation provider Dun & Bradstreet on the growth prospects of small and mid-sized IT/ITeS firms over the next two years.

According to Dun & Brad-street, IT/ITeS companies in the SME space in Kolkata have a growth expectation of 57% between now and 2010. Hy­derabad comes next with a growth prospect of 52%.

"The skillset in Kolkata is one of the best and the cost here is one of the lowest. These could be the reasons be­hind the high revenue expec­tations," Dun & Bradstreet In- formation Services India COO Kaushal Sampat said.

"The average annual growth for IT/ITeS SMEs in Kolkata stood at 41% for the last two years, which was the highest among the. four sec­tors surveyed in Kolkata and adjacent districts," he said.

D&B surveyed 52 SMEs in IT/ITeS arena in Kolkata for the purpose of the study. These firms, which include the likes of Praxis Softek So­lutions and Indus Net Tech­nologies, together employ nearly 2,800 professionals.

Sampat said around 50% of the profiled IT/ITeS compa­nies in Kolkata are involved in exports, with the US emerg­ing as the most preferred ex­port destination. "In fact, 39% of the companies providing IT services and 29% of the com- panies providing software products earned more than 50% of their revenue from the global market," he added.

Sampat said the average annual growth rate for engi­neering and food processing companies here was 24% for the last two years. Average growth was 27% for textile companies. D&B had surveyed 342 firms in all in Bengal.