Washington, Feb 18 (PTI): The notion that jobs from America are being outsourced to India is ''vastly exaggerated'', a top Obama administration official has said, adding Indo-US trade and economic relationship is a two-way process and not heavily tilted towards any one.
"I think that is vastly exaggerated," Robert D Hormats, the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs said at a discussion here when Bob Schieffer, anchor of the CBS News "Face The Nation", asked him about the general impression about India.
"To a lot of Americans, India is the place where American jobs are simply outsourced. We all know about the telephones and all of that. What is that situation?" Schieffer asked. "People watch the TV show "Outsourced" and they see this. But what is not commonly realised is the fact, first of all, that a great deal of trade goes on the export side. India has increased its imports from the US by 17 per cent over the last 12 months.
Indian investment here is beginning to pick up. A number of big Indian companies are investing here, which creates a considerable number of jobs in this country," Hormats said. "The other thing that's interesting is India's growth model is a lot more balanced than the growth models of many other countries. India is not a country whose development model, whose growth model, is based on export-led growth, as is the case with some countries further to the east of India, which is very different," he said adding that India has a more balanced model.
The trade is not way out of balance between exports and imports, from a global point of view. And it is not a huge exporter of manufactured goods to the United States, which compete with manufactured goods in this country, he said.
"So when you look at what they export and you look at the relative balance between imports and exports, it does not cause the same kinds of problems that people attribute to some other countries or raise the same kinds of issues that people attribute to other countries," Hormats argued.
"In addition to that, there is a lot of cooperation between American companies and Indian companies. India has what they call "frugal innovation or innovation where they develop a new kind of product with sort of lower price points. But they work very closely with American companies," he said.
Hormats cited Tata's Nano as one of the example of US India trade co-operation. "Tata has developed what they call a Nano car. It's a little car. They use, in that car, a number of very important components made by American companies. Honeywell is one example I've seen. There is a little part, a little turbo that goes into the car, which enables it to have more power than you would think it has for a little car," he said.
There are more and more collaboration between American companies and Indian companies. While there are questions about protection of intellectual property in many Asian countries, it is quite better in India, he said. "Intellectual property protection in India may not be perfect. But it is quite good. And you find a lot of collaboration between American companies and Indian companies on research, on innovation in developing new technologies. So there is a lot more balance in the relationship," he argued.
"I think this notion that it's an all-out threat to American jobs is exaggerated, when you look at the balance and you look at the kind of collaboration and you look at the fact that while there is still more American investment in India than there is Indian investment in the United States, Indian investment here is beginning to pick up.
So it's a more balanced picture than it looks if you just watch TV and look at "Outsourced" and see some of the commentators. So that's an important difference," Hormats said.