Washington: The US has said that it greatly values investments by Indian companies and wants strong economic ties between the two nations. This comes days after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley raised the issue of restrictions on H-1B visa with his American counterpart Steven Mnuchin.
"We greatly value Indian companies' continued investment in the US economy, which also, of course, supports thousands of US jobs," Toner said.
"With respect to any new requirements on visas, I'd have to check and see if that's been updated," he said, adding that under the current government, the US has been looking at ways to strengthen the processes like visa interview and admission processes in new ways.
Toner said that this had been the case from the beginning of the Trump administration and certainly with respect to immigration and with refugee flows. "Those processes are ongoing," he said. On being asked about the visa review process, Toner said, "It's important to remember that this is always a part of how our consular bureau works and our consular officers work overseas, and our embassies and missions work overseas, and that is we're always reviewing the processes that are in place to issue these visas and finding ways to strengthen them, because we want to ensure the security of the American people."
During his US visit, Jaitley on Saturday had raised the H-1B visa issue with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and highlighted the contribution Indian companies and professionals were making to the US economy. He had also raised the issue with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross earlier.
The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields. Indian technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year for their US operations.
The US market accounts for about 60 per cent of the revenue of the Indian IT industry. Reforming the H-1B visa system was one of the major election promises of Trump. As per several US reports, a majority of the H-1B visas every year are grabbed by Indian IT professionals.
India accounts for the highest pool of qualified IT professionals, whose services go a long way in making American companies globally competitive.
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