Berlin: Germany on May 28 assured India that it will liberalise access for Indian Information Technology professionals to this country under a revised visa regime, amidst apprehensions that the famous 'green card' scheme expiring this July would harm the interest of techies from abroad.

The assurance was given to a business delegation of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) headed by Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley, when they called on German Federal Minister for Economy Clement, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha told reporters.

FICCI president A C Muthiah told reporters that the delegation expressed the apprehension to the German Minister that the expiry of green card scheme the interest of the Indian professionals would be greatly hurt, especially at a time when they wanted Indian investments to flow into Germany.

The Minister reciprocated, saying that excellence in IT field has changed the image of India outside and fully appreciated the need for relaxing the visa regulations, especially with an aging domestic population.

Clement told the delegation that Germany was in the process of formulating an Immigration law, which would provide for increased access to knowledge professionals. In the meanwhile, short-term measures would be taken to resolve the problems faced by these professionals, he added.

Muithiah also conveyed to him that the Indian companies doing business in Germany were denied refund of VAT after the German VAT code was amended in 1995, which was felt as a discrimination since firms from the US and Australia were allowed that facility.

Clement told the delegation that he would discuss the point with the Finance Minister and see what could be done.

Muthiah urged Clement to endeavour to strengthen the rule-based non-discriminatory multilateral trading system under World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The potential areas in which both India and Germany could engage in constructive co-operation in the build-up to Cancun ministerial of the WTO include agriculture, TRIPs and pubic health, access to European Union's (EU) services sector for India's skilled professionals, market access for non- agriculture products in European countries and addressing the implementation issues and co-operation of special and differential (S and D) treatment for developing countries.

Clement responded positively saying that he would support these issues at the Cancun conference.

On agriculture, the Minister said a lot depended on France and that French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would be discussing this.

PTI