Thaindian News

Bangalore, Nov 10 (IANS) The resilient Indian IT industry Wednesday lauded US President Barack Obama for terming those against outsourcing as holding onto old stereotypes and for committing to do away with protectionism.

“Obama did a great job for our industry by terming them (anti-outsourcing lobbies) as stereotypes. I think his administration will also do a great job in terms of changing those stereotypes,” IT industry lobby Nasscom president Som Mittal told reporters here.

For positioning India as the market for US businesses and declaring that India was no longer emerging but had emerged, the US administration’s efforts to change the stereotypes would get support of the industry, Mittal said.

“I think we too have to do our job to change those stereotypes and ensure there is a much larger community that understands our business model that we are part of the solution rather than creating the problem itself,” Mittal said on the margins of Nasscom’s annual Product Conclave & Expo 2010.

Expressing the industry’s satisfaction over the outsourcing issue figuring at the discussions between Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Monday, Mittal said that both the governments were committed to do away with protectionism.

“Obama and Singh have said that (against protectionism and curbs on outsourcing). It was part of their discussions. Both the governments have committed to protectionism not being the way forward. It is the open markets that is going to lead to this,” Mittal asserted.

Recalling the prime minister’s assertion at the joint press conference with Obama in New Delhi Monday that India was not in the business of stealing American jobs, Mittal said the Indian IT industry was actually adding value to the US corporations.

“General Electric (GE) chairman Jeffery R. Immelt and United Technologies chairman Louis Chenvert said at the India-US Business Council summit in Mumbai Saturday how they are winning export deals from the world over and creating jobs in the US because they are able to do design work in India and be able to shorten the product cycle,” Mittal noted.

Admitting that the rhetoric against outsourcing was a sentiment, driven because of high job losses in the US, Mittal said both the governments had assured the industry that its perspectives were understood.

“We hope this message is carried back to the US people by its administration and the media. We also hope that the US Congress will understand our industry’s business model. It is a different matter that those job losses happened to be in manufacturing, retail and construction. In fact, there is net hiring going on in the services if we go by the US labour statistics,” Mittal added.