India to submit services offer to WTO

India is likely to submit its revised offer on services to WTO on Saturday. ‘‘Some last minute fine tuning is being done to the proposal and it is expected to be submitted tomorrow,’’ Commerce ministry officials said.

India’s proposal, which offers liberal FDI limits in services sectors, including telecom and financial services, was approved by the Cabinet committee on WTO on July 25. The Cabinet has given the commerce ministry the flexibility to move forward in WTO talks within the limits of its ‘autonomous liberalisation’. This implies that the ministry can offer up to 74 per cent FDI in telecom, 49 per cent in banking, 26 per cent in insurance in its commitments at the WTO if it received good offer from developed nations in outsourcing. The revised offer in telecom would be made for 49 per cent which could be raised up to 74 per cent only if India received good offers on BPO and movement of professionals.