Germany assured India on Wednesday that it will liberalise its visa regime to allow Indian information technology professionals easy access to the country.
The assurance was given to a business delegation of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and Confederation of Indian Industry headed by Union Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley when they called on German Federal Minister for Economy Wolfgang Clement, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha told reporters.
FICCI president A C Muthiah told reporters that the delegation expressed apprehension to the German minister that with the expiry of the Green Card scheme in July the interest of the Indian professionals would be greatly hurt, especially at a time when they wanted Indian investments to flow into Germany.
The minister reciprocated by saying that excellence in the IT field has changed the image of India, and fully appreciated the need for relaxing visa regulations, especially with an aging domestic population.
Clement told the delegation that Germany was in the process of formulating an immigration law, which would provide for increased access to the knowledge professionals. In the meanwhile, short-term measures would be taken to resolve the problems faced by these professionals, he added.
Muithiah also conveyed to him that the Indian companies doing business in Germany were denied refund of value-added tax after the German VAT code was amended in 1995, which was felt as a discrimination since firms from the US and Australia were allowed that facility.
Clement told the delegation that he would discuss the point with the finance minister and see what could be done.
Muthiah also urged Clement to endeavour to strengthen the rule-based non-discriminatory multilateral trading system under World Trade Organisation.
The potential areas in which both India and Germany could engage in constructive cooperation in the buildup to the Cancun ministerial of the WTO include agriculture, TRIPs (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights) and public health, access to European Union's services sector for India's skilled professionals, market access for non-agriculture products in the European countries and addressing the implementation issues and cooperation of special and differential (S&D) treatment for developing countries.
Clement responded positively saying that he would support these issues at the Cancun conference.
On agriculture, the minister said a lot depended on France and that French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would be discussing this.