Swedish trade minister Leif Pagrotsky said on Thursday the arrest of i-flex Solutions official Senthil Kumar in London was a "non-tariff barrier" against the developing world.
"Obviously this is imposition of a non-tarriff barrier against providing services which are fundamentally driven by individuals," the visiting Swedish minister told reporters in Bangalore.
He made the comment when asked if Kumar's arrest in London at the behest of Dutch authorities, was a "neo-non-tarriff barrier" against India to protect local jobs in the IT sector.
"In terms of goods, you can apply barriers to restrict movements. But in order to deliver services a person should move to the location," he said.
He said Europe was "generally closed" in issuing visas. "It is also not easy to get visas for the United States or Japan. To solve this, we need to have a new multilateral agreement in the World Trade Organisation to include services," Pagrotsky said.
He said the last GATT agreement framed in the 1980s was not keeping pace with the growing changes in the world.
Pagrotsky said he hoped in the next round of WTO talks in September this year, efforts to include services and extending work permit from three to six months would be discussed.
