While conceding that the issue of outsourcing was ‘‘complex’’, the US has said India had no right to complain about proposed legislation in Congress and some state legislatures prohibiting the trend as it was the most ‘‘closed’’ economies in the world.‘‘The Indians,’’ US trade representative Robert Zoellick told the Senate Finance Committee yesterday, ‘‘have absolutely no right to complain because they don’t belong to the government procurement code’’ in the world trade organisation, which sets obligations for making procurement deals transparent. Frankly, they are not that liberal on the services side,’’ he alleged, adding India, which is attracting some of the outsourced US jobs, is maintaining ‘‘one of the most closed economies in the world.’’The services sector, he said, offers increasing opportunities for developed and developing countries to work together for mutual benefit and demanded that more competitive developing countries such as India, China and Brazil open their markets in order to sustain support for open markets in the US and elsewhere. ‘‘If countries around the world that are emerging economic powers want to get the benefits of the system they are going to have to contribute to the system.’’Zoellick said bluntly that he would rather negotiate agreements that open trade in two directions than simply give one-way preferential entry to the US market. White House press secretary Scott Mcclellan told r`reporters earlier that while President George W. Bush is against economic isolationism and for free trade, he also wants ‘‘fair trade.’’ Analysts point out that the phrase ‘‘fair trade’’ is an ambiguous phrase which can be used either to promote free trade or to block it. Zoellick in his testimony reflected that view. Arguing the case for ‘‘fair trade,’’ Zoellick said ‘‘95 per cent of the world’s customers live outside our borders, and we need to open those markets for our manufacturers, our farmers and ranchers, and our service companies.’’Meanwhile, US Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein has called for a treasury investigation of the outsourcing practices of American banks, the Pasedena Star News reports. She said she was concerned that sensitive personal information may be at risk in outsourcing.Many large US banks use third-party contractors from other countries for a variety of core banking functions, she said, including payroll and merchant processing, customer call centres and mortgage servicing. ‘‘I am greatly concerned that national banks are sending American citizens’ sensitive financial data abroad to third-party vendors without adequate privacy and security protections,’’ Feinstein said in a recent a letter to John D. Hawke Jr, comptroller of the currency. Feinstein has requested that banks direct their third-party providers to ‘‘fully disclose breaches in security resulting in unauthorised intrusions that may materially affect the bank or its customers.’’ —(PTI)
