Britain assures Kamal Nath over HMSP visa issue

London, Dec 13 (IANS) A senior British minister Thursday assured visiting Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath that Britain will resolve the issue of changes to its visa regime that has disadvantaged thousands of highly skilled Indian workers in that country.

The assurance came after Kamal Nath raised the issue with British Trade Minister John Hutton on the sidelines of a business-to-business meeting here, where the Indian minister said continuing stalemate over the issue “would not be conducive” to business relations between India and Britain.


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Britain made abrupt back-dated changes to its Highly Skilled Migrants Programme (HSMP) visa last year favouring younger, higher-salaried workers, potentially endangering the status of several thousand Indians already living and working in Britain under the scheme.

“I have raised our concerns in bilateral meetings that this would not be conducive to what we are trying to do.

“The minister of the Secretary of State has assured me that he will take this up with the government because they would themselves like to see this resolved,” Kamal Nath said after a meeting of the Indo-British Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO).

The minister also raised the issue of difficulties faced by IT engineers in obtaining visas for short-term visits to Britain to work on technical integration, after-sales services and maintenance.

The fourth meeting of JETCO assumes particular importance as it is expected to help lay the agenda for business discussions between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his British counterpart Gordon Brown in New Delhi in January next year.

The committee, comprising business leaders from the two countries, discussed six areas: financial services, legal services, accountancy, agricultural business, infrastructure and healthcare services and Kamal Nath said the business-driven meetings were “conducive to business”.

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