Jaitley in US

The non-immigrant and temporary H-1B work visa is the most sought after by Indian techies as it allows US companies to employ foreign workers. Indian technology companies depend on the H-1B visa too to hire thousands of employees each year for their US operations. President Donald Trump and key members of his administration, including attorney general Jeff Sessions, said the H-1B visa policy is behind Americans losing jobs to foreigners brought to the country on lowers wages and benefits. Critics of the system have also alleged fraud.

Trump has ordered a review of the system, under his overarching vision of “Buy American, Hire American”, to eliminate abuse and fraud and to ensure jobs were not going to foreigners at the cost of Americans.

Jaitley was in Washington DC to attend a meeting of the International Monetary and Finance Committee (IMFC), the panel that advises the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to a finance ministry statement.

In October, the IMF cut its growth estimate for the Indian economy by 0.5 percentage point to 6.7% for 2017, blaming the aftershocks of last year’s demonetisation exercise and the rollout of the goods and services tax (GST) this July. But IMF chief Christine Lagarde was optimistic about India’s medium-term prospects. She told reporters that despite a slight lowering of growth projections for India for the current year and the next, the multilateral agency sees “a very solid track ahead for the Indian economy” for the medium term.

Jaitley said India is one of the few large economies in the world in a “virtuous phase of its demographic transition.”

He lashed out at criticism of the slowdown in the Indian economy, saying it’s coming from those who “normally don’t see beyond their nose” and are missing indicators of a turnaround and those beset by “immaturity”, including some within the BJP.