WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters): India wants a new world trade pact that would prevent the United States and other countries from taking steps to ban companies from outsourcing jobs, a top Indian official said yesterday.

Proposals in the US Congress in recent years to ban outsourcing have sent off "alarm bells" in New Delhi, Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said.

To prevent those from becoming law, India wants the United States to lock in current US legislation allowing companies to move jobs offshore as part of any new world trade agreement, he said.

India's booming technology capital of Bangalore has become a global symbol for the outsourcing phenomenon. The city of 6.5 million accounts for at least one-third of India's $16 billion software and back-office service outsourcing industry, which employs more than 900,000 people.

On Tuesday, the United States submitted a revised offer in World Trade Organisation service negotiations that would lock in the current access that foreign financial services companies have in the US market and expand access for foreign firms in areas such as telecommunications, computer and related services, higher education and transportation.

US Commerce Secy visits

China in textile row

BEIJING (Reuters): US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez arrived in Beijing today for a three-day visit to try to ease tensions in a growing trade row over surging textile exports from China.

US imports of clothing from China have risen dramatically since Jan. 1, when a decades-old international quota system was phased out as the result of a 1994 world trade deal.

Under pressure from the domestic textile industry, the administration of US President George Bush has put emergency import curbs on trousers, shirts, underwear and cotton yarn from China.

Corruption claims Rs.6b
a year since Pak inception

LAHORE (Internet): An anti-corruption watchdog in Pakistan has said that corruption had resulted in losses of about Rs.6 billion a year since Pakistan's inception in 1947.

The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) of Punjab province identified public utilities, tax regime, public sector banking, underground economy and public sector expenditure as the major areas of corruption in the region, The News reported Thursday.

In a report submitted to the Punjab chief minister, ACE said around Rs.333 billion out of the total transaction of Rs.1,358 billion had allegedly been lost during previous regimes since Pakistan's inception.

New French PM vows
fight to curb joblessness

PARIS (AP): New Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin pledged to "try everything" to bring down France's persistently high unemployment rate and vowed urgent action to restore confidence in a government reeling after a crushing rejection of the EU constitution.

Villepin, speaking Wednesday in his first prime-time TV appearance since his appointment a day earlier, said he expected his government to be formed and to hold its first meeting led by President Jacques Chirac by the end of the week. He did not name any ministers.