H1-B Visa Benefits The US More Than India, Says CII

The H1-B visa benefits the US more than it benefits India because it is attracting high-end technical skills that helps in building its own economy, Naushad Forbes, president of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said at the ongoing Sunrise Andhra Pradesh Investment Meet in Visakhapatnam.

This is in context of the rising concern in the Indian IT industry over potential reforms in the H1-B visa in the new US presidential regime under Donald J. Trump. The concerns are legitimate given that North America contributes about 60 per cent of the $82 billion software export revenue of the Indian IT outsourcing industry.

And, around 65 per cent of the 65,000 H1-B petitions approved a few years ago went to Indian IT services companies like TCS, Infosys, and Wipro.

In an economy, the consumer benefits from imports more than exports, Forbes said suggesting the benefits the US reaps by exporting services from the Indian IT industry.

People are somewhat “exaggerating” on the H1-B visa issue, said Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow at the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. “The US is a global economy and that’s not going to change,” she said.

Agreeing to Forbes’ views, Curtis said that the US too benefits from India’s knowledge. “We need to wait and watch and see the implementations…the devil is in the details,” she said.