Premji vents frustration on the West at WEF
Thursday, 27 January 2011, 19:27 IST   |    21 Comments
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Premji vents frustration on the West at WEF
Davos: In a harsh criticism of the U.S. 'restrictive' policies, the Chairman of India-based Wipro, Azim Premji, told the gathering of global CEOs that the emerging economies are "more than fed up" of being lectured by the west to open their economies without any reciprocity. "I think they (emerging economies) are fed up of being needled for opening their economies," Premji said at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. He particularly expressed his disappointment with the U.S. seeking more market for its goods in the developing economies, while putting restrictions on its import of services. The liberalisation of goods and services was being treated differently. When asked whether the Asian economies are "fed up by the lecturing" by the west, the Chairman of India's third largest software exporter said, "more than fed up". "People don't seem to equate, liberalise both products and services. If you are talking about global trade -- it is products and services. You cannot have one standards of opening up economy for emerging countries to products and contrary (for the others) particularly the U.S., which has put all sorts of restrictions on services. This cannot be one way traffic," Premji said. The Indian IT industry, which gets $50 billion of its revenue from the global outsourcing, mainly from the US is peeved at a string of restrictions by the American authorities for service imports. These include hiking the visa fee for professionals. On the contrary, India has given deals worth $10 billion to the U.S. which will create jobs for 50,000 Americans. Services are of key interest to India, as they provide about 55 percent of its Gross Domestic Product.
Source: PTI
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