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India pushes rich nations to open up service sector
Jan 25, 2007 - 10:16:56 PM
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He has already spoken to European Union's Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and said rich nations must concede much more than what is already on the table to be able to take the trade talks further.
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By Arvind Padmanabhan, IANS,
[RxPG] Davos, Jan 25 - With efforts on to revive global trade talks, India has asked rich nations to open up their services trade, especially for free movement of professionals, so that developing countries get more flexibility in their negotiating positions.
'Many developing countries, including India, have autonomously liberalized their service sectors and offered to bind this liberalization in their revised offer,' Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said referring to India's position on trade in services.
'But developed countries must realise that enough flexibility is necessary for developing countries to pursue their national policy objectives,' the minister told the annual meeting of the World Trade Organisation -.
Kamal Nath said India's concerns were on two areas under the trade in services, namely Mode 1 on cross-border supplies of services and Mode 1 on movement of professionals and called for liberal commitment by rich nations.
'This would also address the issue of asymmetry of offers. But flexibility to developing countries in taking commitments is a must,' the minister said at the session on 'India and the Global Services Economy'.
According to the minister the services sector in India had clearly come of age, with such exports touching $60 billion in the last fiscal, constituting 54 percent of the country's gross domestic product and 37 percent of exports.
He said the information technology and the business process outsourcing industry will see a coming of age in 2007, as Indian companies move towards higher value services, in knowledge processing, remote infrastructure management, design and engineering.
'IT may be one of our biggest and best known success stories, but we are fast awakening to the immense possibilities that our vast pool of talent offers in other service sectors,' Kamal Nath said.
The minister said healthcare was another area in which India can expect another boom with outsourcing in the healthcare sector having come a long way from low-end claims processing and transcription to analytics and clinical processing.
'With combined annual growth rate of 150 percent over the last couple of years, the medical service outsourcing has enormous growth potential.'
Kamal Nath is heading a 100-plus Indian delegation to the annual meeting where he also has some important engagements Friday and Saturday to revive the stalled global trade talks.
He has already spoken to European Union's Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and said rich nations must concede much more than what is already on the table to be able to take the trade talks further.
He expressed similar concerns to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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