"India has, in fact, turned out to be the fifth largest economy in the world which had outsourced IT and business services of $11 billion by the end of 2003-04 to the US, Britain, Germany and Japan," said M. Bussi, deputy director of ILO Office for India at a seminar organised here Friday by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham).

Bussi pointed out that India spent roughly 2.4 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) share in outsourcing businesses relating to IT and services against the US GDP share of 0.4 percent at the end of 2003-04.

Leading business outsourcing countries like the US spent $41 billion followed by Germany with $39 billion during 2003-04. 

"Countries like Japan and Britain respectively spent $35 billion and $16 billion on outsourcing their business. China spent $8 billion," Bussi said.

He regretted that "this hard fact never got published in the media as it has been critically looking at the growing phenomena of BPO with an angle that outsourcing has led to the losses of jobs in the countries of outsourcing origin".

Bussi said that while outsourcing in the short-term creates unemployment, "it pays off adequately in the long-run because labour market has tremendous scope for adjusting the economic distortions that initially are created at the time of outsourcing."
 
With the increased focus of the Indian government towards improving its rural and agriculture sector, the official expected the focus to shift from outsourcing of IT and businesses towards agriculture. 

The official urged "enough attention should be paid to encourage the entry of multinationals by allowing them to test their agricultural seeds for rural India so that the high yield crops production is encouraged in the Indian countryside."
  
--Indo-Asian News Service