Hyderabad: Hyderabad will play host to the World Information Technology Congress (WITC), the biggest event of its kind, in 2018. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said on Friday that the city was going to be host of many more such events in the near future.

Hyderabad was preferred over the national capital Delhi and Bengaluru for hosting the event as the organisers found the city better equipped with necessary infrastructure.

However, Rao told the officials that much more needs to be done to make the city befitting for the label of a “Mega City”. He asked them to come up with the plans for the expeditious development of the city.

WITC is a biennial event, which brings thousands of IT experts, policy and decision makers, and government officials from all over the world together to discuss various IT challenges and possible solutions. This will be the second time that the event will be held in Asia, the last being in 2008 in Kualalumpur. The 2014 edition was held in Mexico and was themed “Digital World”. The next event will be held in Brazil in 2016. India and Hyderabad emerged winners in the race to host the event in the face of tough competition from European countries.

According to the state government officials, the chief minister and the minister for information and technology K Taraka Rama Rao will soon meet the officials of Nasscom, the representative body of Indian software development and export companies, to chalk-out plans for successful conduct of the event.

The conference coincides with the ambitious target of Telangana government to increase the software exports from Hyderabad to Rs1 trillion (Dh57 billion) per annum in the next three years.

“State government attaches a lot of significance to this global event as it will give a big push to the plans to develop the IT sector in the state and also reaffirm the global position of Hyderabad city on the IT map”, a senior official said.

As part of the faster development of the IT sector, the state government will also put emphasis on the implementation of the IT Investment Corridor around the city, which has been sanctioned by the Union government, and boost the infrastructure and the employment opportunities by attracting bigger projects.

The plans received a shot in the arm recently as IT giant Google decided to set up a massive campus in the city. Officials say that many other big names were also showing keen interest in the state.

Officials said that a new IT policy was being formulated to not only attract new projects but also to encourage the existing companies to expand their operations.