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Its all about trading off American jobs so the transnationals can get access to previously protected foreign trade.

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India would favourably consider demand from the US and the EU for greater market for industrial goods in the country if the request for liberalisation of H1B visas is accepted, sources said.

The government is also looking at granting better market in services as well as agriculture if the demand for more visas is met. The visa issue is important to India, along with other issues like elimination of export subsidies for farm products in the US and the EU.

Scrapping of tariff peaks, which restrict market access to key goods like agriculture, is also being pursued strongly.

Negotiations on services, agriculture and market access for industrial goods — technically called Nama (non-agriculture market access) — are picking up in the run up to the Hong Kong ministerial meeting of the WTO slated for December.

In the case of services, the initial offers of India would pertain to liberalisation of business services, construction and related engineering services, health-related services, tourism and travel-related services, maritime services and transport services.

In certain cases, India has opened up the market for foreign companies on its own and the offer at the WTO would be to commit itself against reversal of market access.

In other words, market access would be ‘bound’ in a manner that makes it virtually impossible to close the doors on foreign companies without facing serious consequences.

As the time-consuming process of negotiations through ‘offers’ and ‘requests’ moves ahead, India might work on better market access to its partners only if other countries are willing to liberalise Mode 4 and Mode 1 under the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services). Initial offers were submitted at the end of last month and negotiations with various partners are ongoing.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1151091,curpg-4.cms