Chilean President Ricardo Lagos Escobar Wednesday urged the Tata group, one of India's largest diversified conglomerates, to expand its business operations in his country.

Escobar, the first Chilean head of state to travel to India, visited the Tata International showroom here with a high-level official and business delegation.

He was impressed with the industrial and management capability of the Tata group in key sectors including automobiles, heavy engineering, chemicals and pesticides, and IT.

"Exports and service-oriented industries are important pillars in Chile's growth strategy, given the small size of its population," said Escobar.

He emphasised that Chile was keen on creating a digital economy to emerge as a business process outsourcing (BPO) hub for the Spanish-speaking world.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the first and only Indian IT company with operations in Chile since 2002.

S. Ramadorai, CEO of TCS, said: "TCS is very happy with its experience in Chile and will expand its local operations and export IT and BPO services from Chile with local partner Comicron."

Chile is one of the most highly developed economies in Latin America with a gross domestic product of nearly $85 billion. The economy is based on the country's natural resources and diversified non-traditional sectors.

Chile's export sector is relatively strong and diversified, with copper typically representing around 35 percent of export earnings, compared to 80 percent in 1973.

The country's economy has been liberalised through an extensive privatisation policy, tax revenue increases and allowing the peso to float freely.

Chile's major exports include copper, fresh fruit, cellulose, fish meal, salmon and wine. It imports intermediate goods, capital goods and consumer goods.

Located in Santiago, TCS Chile, set up in 2002, has been one of the successful forays of TCS into Latin America. TCS is now in the process of setting up new business following the BSP model with Comicron.