German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer launched a fresh bid to recruit Indian professionals on Wednesday, pledging that a new immigration law would make Germany a winning alternative for the best brains.
Fischer, on a five-country tour of Asia, told the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce in Mumbai that legislation passed earlier this month would knock down barriers that had put off skilled workers in the past.
The minister said he had encountered frustration in talks with Indian business leaders about Germany's Green Card temporary visa programme for highly qualified workers introduced in August 2000.
"It is still easier as a terrorist to get asylum in Germany than as a foreign software expert to get into the market," one IT executive, who asked not to be named, told Fischer during a morning meeting in India's business capital.
Fischer assured that the new law, which is to go into force January 1, would remove the hurdles for immigrants who could make a contribution to the German economy - Europe's largest.
"I think this will reduce the problems we have had in the past," he said.
Under the Green Card programme for foreigners outside the European Union, Germany hoped to draw 20,000 high-tech experts in the first three years to fill a yawning gap in the work force.
However, the scheme only managed to bring about 15,000 people to Germany - 4,000 of them Indians - largely due to a maze of bureaucratic hurdles, the limited length of the visa and a refusal to allow family members to come.
Fischer also said the programme had been introduced too late, just as the Internet boom imploded.
"With the end of the bubble, we had a decline of the economy which had a negative effect on the Green Card program," he said.
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