M A I N   N E W S

We are not stealing US jobs, PM says
Ashok Tuteja
Tribune News Service

OBAMA CLARIFIES

Reflecting a sharp change in his stand on outsourcing, Obama said, “I don’t think you heard me make outsourcing a bogeyman during the course of my visit… In fact, I expressly said during my visit to Mumbai, at the business council, that both countries (India and the US), I think, were operating on some stereotypes that have outlived their usefulness.”

New Delhi, November 8
Even as President Obama stood alongside him at their joint press conference here today, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took the US administration head on over the issue of outsourcing, saying India was not in the business of stealing jobs from America. Outsourcing had rather helped improve productivity of the US, he said as Obama appeared to have been taken aback by the Indian leader’s tough posturing on the issue.

Manmohan Singh said the new deals that the two countries had signed, particularly in the infrastructure sector, provided a win-win situation for both.

Ever since his inauguration in January last year, Obama has been grappling with the problem of rising unemployment in the US. He has been quite vocally talking of the American jobs being taken away by the Chinese and the Indians. His visit to India came just two days after the electoral reverses suffered by the Democrats in what is seen as a vote against the Obama administration’s economic policies.

US President Barack Obama waves with PM Manmohan Singh after speaking during a joint press conference at Hyderabad House in New Delhi

Reflecting a sharp change in his stand on outsourcing following the poll outcome, Obama said he never made “outsourcing a bogeyman” but asked the businesses of the two sides to shed stereotypes. “I don’t think you heard me make outsourcing a bogeyman during the course of my visit… In fact, I expressly said during my visit to Mumbai, at the business council, that both countries (India and the US), I think, were operating on some stereotypes that have outlived their usefulness,” the US President said when asked why India was being targeted when jobs were actually lost to China.

Referring to Indo-US commercial deals worth $15 billion announced in Mumbai yesterday, he said “whenever I’m asked about Indians taking away our jobs, I want to say: You know what, they’ve just created 50,000 jobs.”

The Indian PM said outsourcing of work to India had helped US companies become more competitive, as also increased their productivity and capacity.

Manmohan Singh welcomed American initiative and commitment to support India, saying this was essential for sustaining 9-10 per cent growth over the next three decades. He pointed out that India needed $1 trillion of investment in infrastructure over the next five years.