India disappointed with U.S., EU services offers
By agencies   |   Tuesday, 07 June 2005, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: India today said that it was very disappointed with offer made by the U.S. in the services negotiations of WTO as it has not increased number of work visas for professionals. "We are very dissapointed with U.S. offer," senior Commerce Ministry officials said, cautioning that India's revised offers to be submitted to WTO this month end "will reflect this disappointment". The services offer submitted to WTO by the European Union was also not upto India's expectations, though it was slightly better than its earlier one, officials said. India which has offensive interests in Mode 1 (cross border supply of services like call centers) and Mode 4 (movement of natural persons) of services sector which form 52 percent of its Gross Domestic Product was very hopeful of U.S. and EU liberalizing this sector. With developed countries' "improved" offers not showing any real improvement, it is likely that India will also submit a conservative offer and not even bind its autonomous liberalization. The Cabinet will take up New Delhi’s services offer next week as certain issues in telecom are to be clarified. These issues could be taken up in the last meeting of Cabinet Committee on WTO on May 30 as Communication Minister Dayanidhi Maran and Finance Minister P Chidambaram were not present in the meeting. Commerce Minister Kamal Nath has made it clear that while India will make its revised offers on opening up of services to WTO, the improvement in the offer would depend on what it gets from other countries. "What we ultimately offer will depend on what is offered to us. India will be guided by the range and depth of the improved offers that would be made by the developed countries in modes and sectors of interest to India," Nath had said after the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on WTO on May 30. The sectors in which initial offers were made included business services, construction and related engineering services, health related and social services, tourism and travel related, maritime services and transport services. However, India, which is still examining the offers submitted by other countries, has found Canada and Australia's offers to be better than their previous ones. But the improvement in their offers can be determined only after a thorough examination, the officials said.

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