Posted on 06/07/2003 3:52:09 AM PDT by sarcasm
NEW DELHI: Perturbed by the moves in the US to put fresh visa restrictions on IT personnel, India on Thursday said it would soon take up the contentious issue with the authorities in Washington as it was creating 'trade distortions'.
"I will take it (visa restriction issue) with the US when I visit the country next week," said Commerce and Law Minister Arun Jaitley.
Terming the proposed legal measures for restricting movement of software personnel from India through L-1 visa as 'non-tarrif barrier', Jaitley said on the contrary India would seek further relaxation on existing visa conditions for freer movement of service sector professionals to boost bilateral trade.
Stating that the US was India's major trading partner with trade totalling to around $16 billion last year, Jaitley said the visa restrictions appeared as a dichotomy at a time when the developed countries were pressing for access to third world country markets in areas where they were strong.
"Market access cannot be confined only to the developed countries but also should be extended to the developing countries to the areas where they are strong," he said.
On the proposed New Jersey legislation and similar proposed laws by other states in the US to restrict government procurement to domestic companies, the minister said, though the government procurement at present was not much, such a legislation would hinder movement of professionals, an issue pressed with vigour by India in World Trade Organisation.
Asked about India's trade prospects particularly in the backdrop of the deadly SARS affecting the neighbouring economies including China, and American operations in Iraq, Jaitley said these would help improve the already robust performance by the export sector.
Despite the global slowdown after the September 11 terrorist strikes in the US, the export have performed brilliantly and India registered an export growth of 18 per cent, he said.
To the contrary, it is we, Americans, by being increasingly illiterate, preferring a trip to the mall to an evening course in college, and insisting on the wealth not commensurate with our prodictivity -- it is we who push ourselves out of work.
And it is voices like yours, insisting on protectionism, that sound more Democratic than any Indian Caucus.
The Americans out of work in the IT industry are the ones who have become highly educated in a technical field. Many have long work experience as a professional to go with that. Corporate managerts who will not have to live with or explain the results of overseas outsourcing are able to save money on paper today because the decreased productivity that results feom those paper savings today will not be their department by the time they show up.
And it is voices like yours, insisting on protectionism, that sound more Democratic than any Indian Caucus.
Now I demand that a free market be a freee market and you call me a Democrat. that sir is abusive and I know that knowone who has read my posts on Free Republic for the past five years will buy into that (or is it six years now?). Lets see we have Islee of Washington one of the most Liberal Democrats in existence in this lobby, along with that paragon of coservatism Shelia Jackson Lee. The USA from the administration of Thomas Jefferson to at least the administration of FDR did not enage in absolute Free Trade and we went from an agrarian economy Eqst of the Appalachains to the worlds economic engine. Since GATT the has been a steady erosion in employment especially in techniocal fields. Instead of dicussing my arguments you choose instead to call names. Classic Democrat debating trick. Why not call me a racist too while you are at it. that has been done by other adherents of the Globalist Internationalist religion.
No I do not want Indian H1B programmers coming to America, nor do I want Irish or russian H1B programmers (or engineers, doctors lawyers or accountants) coming to America or Chinese or those of any other nation. If people from these nations wish to immigrate to the USA as permanent residents fine let them come through the lottery system as every other legal immigrant must do.
I want to stop government subsidies to corporations taht are exporting capital from the USA instead of investing in the USA. How is that not smaller government. You object to reciprocal tarriffs. You object to them when other nations have barriers to trade that are making American products more expensive in their domestic markets than a free trade envirornment would suggest. No you are not for Free Trade merely against the USA.
I remind you that such endeavors as IT and Aerospace engineering along with many other engineering disciplines are vital to our nation maintaining the defense structure it needs. Yet in the name of the religion of Globalism-Internationalism you would see the USA destroyed as a free and independant nation guaranteeing constitutional rights to its citizens. go sing your choruses of "The International" to someone other than me. I do not buy your mistatements of reality any more than I buy teh statements of Kim Jong Il (another singer of "The International")
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