Alarmed by the increasing visa restrictions being imposed by the developed countries on the movement of people and outsourcing of services from developing countries, the World Bank intends to bring out a detailed report for discussions at the next round of World Trade Organisation negotiations.

World Bank vice-president Gobind Nankani told the media in Bangalore on Friday at the end of the three-day Annual Bank Conference on Development of Economics that the bank would take up the visa issue with the rich nations after assessing the impact of such curbs being imposed by developed countries such as the US, Germany and the UK.

"We are aware of the issue. Such restrictions amount to neo-protectionism and raking up of new non-tariff barriers. Even legislative measures against outsourcing services, especially IT skills will jeopardise multilateral trade and movement of skilled workforce across borders," Nankani stated.

Though the General Agreement on Trade in Services, movement of service providers, and cross-border trade were yet to be taken up at the WTO parleys, Nankani said the issues were sensitive in nature as the rich nations had linked the lifting of such curbs to the opening up of the markets by the developing countries to their products, services and labour reforms.

"Movement of people is also important to India as its skilled IT workforce has come to dominate the services sector, which contributes about 50 per cent of the country's GDP growth rate.

"International remittances to developing countries are about $80 billion annually, which is higher than the $50-billion annual aid that flows from the donor countries," Nankani disclosed.

Sounding a word of caution, National Council of Applied Economics Research director general Suman Bery said the Indian government would have to be pro-active in the next WTO negotiations at Cancun in Mexico this September to ensure that such non-tariff barriers do not restrict its competitive advantage in skilled services and outsourcing of IT solutions.

"Unlike China and other Asian countries, which are protected by regional trading treaties or blocks, India is a multilateral trading partner with high stakes in increasing its share of exports and services to global markets.