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Wipro, IATA Team up on the e-freight Initiative
[March 23, 2007]

Wipro, IATA Team up on the e-freight Initiative


BANGALORE, India --(Business Wire)-- Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT), today announced a strategic partnership with International Air Transport Association (IATA) for its e-freight initiative.

IATA's long-term vision is to free air cargo industry processes of paper. Currently, an average shipment travels with up to 38 documents that are exchanged between various parties, including shippers, airlines, freight forwarders, handling agents, import/export brokers and customs.



The IATA e-freight programme forms part of its strategic "Simplifying the Business" initiative, with the association committed to lead and support e-freight implementation for the air cargo industry. It also aims to align stakeholders to common goals and standards in order to facilitate the delivery of e-freight solutions.

By joining the IATA e-freight Preferred Partner programme, Wipro will commit to the development of e-freight solutions that will dramatically reduce complexity and paper-based processes.


Manoj Punja, Senior Vice President, Wipro Technologies, said, "IATA is spearheading an industry-wide initiative to optimize air cargo processes, by removing documentation and working with the IATA e-freight StB preferred partners to provide simple and efficient systems to global customers. We are proud to be one of their strategic partners by delivering e-freight solutions which will support this prestigious project."

"IATA welcomes Wipro's decision to become a StB Preferred Partner. We look forward to their participation in supporting the IATA e-freight Message Improvement Programme (MIP), supporting the pilots and supporting the e-freight vision," said Mr. Aleks Popovich, Global Head of Cargo, IATA. "As one of our partners, Wipro will help improve message quality, develop global standards and implement global systems for trading partners, which, in turn, will lead to industry cost savings and add value to the e-freight solutions to be offered."

Sam Sahana, CIO, IATA, said, "I am pleased that we have been able to take our association with Wipro to the next level. Wipro through its commitment has been able to add a lot of value to IATA. I am sure we can expect a similar level of commitment and excellence from Wipro in this strategic initiative."

IATA and Wipro have worked earlier in areas like design & development of platforms, reporting applications, portals & web-based applications. Wipro is also engaged in a long-term application support.

Wipro has developed "Centers of Excellences" focused on domain areas like Loyalty Management, Customer Experience, RFID, Transportation Management, Warehouse Management, SCM, Demand management & Sarbanes Oxley compliance, Dynamic Packaging, Adaptors for GDS integration, etc. Wipro also partners with industry associations like IATA, HTNG & OTA to evolve standards and guidelines for systems integration and interoperability.

About IATA

Over 60 years, IATA has developed the commercial standards that built a global industry. Today, IATA's mission is to represent, lead and serve the airline industry. Its members comprise some 250 airlines -- the world's leading passenger and cargo airlines among them -- representing 94 percent of international scheduled air traffic. For more information, visit http://www.iata.org.

About IATA e-freight

In 2004, IATA launched a project, IATA e-freight, designed to eliminate the need to produce and transport paper documents for air cargo shipments by moving to a simpler, industry-wide, electronic, paper-free environment.

As IATA e-freight impacts the entire cargo supply chain, an Industry Action Group has been formed, including airlines, top freight forwarders represented by their association Freight Forward International, and the World Customs Organization. Together with IATA, this group will align industry stakeholders and help drive the project forward. For more information, visit http://www.iata.org/stbsupportportal/efreight.

For details about Wipro Limited & forward-looking and cautionary statements please see link below:

http://www.wipro.com/news/about_wipro.htm

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