US Services Ind body seeks conditional offers from India

New Delhi, Apr 10 (UNI) The US Coalition of Service Industries (CSI) today said it is looking for conditional offers from India in financial services in the WTO Doha round to enable the US Congress to adopt a more realistic approach in the negotiations.

CSI President Robert Vastine said, ''CSI is working with the US Congress and the US Trade Representative to provide short-term business travel facilitation visa for the entry of technical and qualified personnel from India, particularly in IT and computer services, who can render contractual service of one or one-and-a-half years.'' Mr Vastine is here to meet key Indian policy makers including Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Commerce Secretary S N Menon to discuss liberalisation of financial services.

Sectors such as IT&ITES, express delivery services, banking, insurance and telecom will feature in the discussions.

While commending the success of the plurilateral process of negotiations, Mr Vastine said, ''Our mission here is to see how India can be more constructive in its commitments under GATS.'' He pointed out that in the Uruguay Round, India had made only 13 per cent commitments in GATS and in its revised offers it has added only 8 per cent to it.

However, it has not made any offer in critical sectors which are crucial for its own economic development.

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