'Uruguay rounds of World Trade Organization (WTO), automatically liberalized India's services sector. Unfortunately, the developed countries are yet to liberalize their markets. United States of America has not followed its Mode 1 and Mode 4 commitments for trade and India cannot globalize at the cost of domestic market, said Mr. Amrinder Kahtua, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Presenting a WTO perspective to the services sector, Mr. Kathua was speaking at CII Services Conclave, India's demographic Dilemma: Talent Challenges for Services Sector, organized today by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

He further added, 'Agriculture and NAMA occupies priority for India's services negotiations with WTO. We have been asking for real market access by doing away with domestic regulations. We should also explore ways of engaging in greater trade with emerging nations as India's trade in services with developing economies is zero. It is imperative to streamline our public-private partnerships and nurture it as a platform for skills development. We should expand our domain of trade in services beyond, IT, ITes, travel & transportation and financial sectors.'

At the occasion, Mr. Kathua also launched a report by CII and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on India's demographic Dilemma, Talent Challenges for the Services Sector. The study highlights the key challenges India faces with inadequate manpower supply vis-a-vis the services sector. Over the last few decades the services sector has emerged as the growth driver for the economy. Today services (including construction) contribute almost 60% of India's GDP and going forward this share is likely to increase. In the next five years, the sector is likely to contribute more than 70% of the incremental growth in India's GDP.

Dr. Janmejaya Sinha, Managing Director, The Boston Consultancy Group, said, "as the world is moving eastwards, single biggest problem that India faces is the talent crunch. Even the graduates produced in our country do not qualify for employment. One of the key challenges that India faces today is to convince people to join the modern workforce."

Taking excerpt from the report, he spoke about the need for greater commitment within public-private networks towards capacity building of manpower in vocational as well as the traditional school/college setups. He also stated, 'we need to deregulate the traditional educational structures and offer them greater autonomy. Some performance tracking linkages should be associated with funding aspects of the training institutions.'

Earlier welcoming the audience with his theme address, Mr. S Gopalakrishnan, Chairman, CII Services Council & CEO and Managing Director, Infosys Technologies Ltd., said, 'today talent crunch accounts for top two - three priorities for the CEOs across the globe. Services sector has been the catalyst of economic growth, which should be augmented with proper supply of competent manpower.'

In his concluding remarks, Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), highlighted CII's initiatives towards skill building. He said, 'Over the last few years CII has been talking about services sector and skill gaps. CII has been proactively addressing the issue with a decisive strategy. This study offers a concrete roadmap for our future approach. Besides other initiatives, CII is working with 149 ITIs towards skills development. CII-National Skills Development Centre offers training by making use of spaces available at schools and colleges, as against bricks and motors centres. We have signed MoUs with the University of Delhi and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) towards skills development.'