The government on Wednesday said protectionist barriers against outsourcing would not survive in the face of overall economic gains.

"Off-shoring is bound to play an important role in securing domestic, high value-added jobs and creating new ones. Erection of protectionist barriers due to political and emotional response may not survive in the face of overall economic gains," IT and Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran said.

Outsourcing and India: Complete Coverage

"The biggest IT companies have started outsourcing their tasks because it makes IT services cheaper. This is expected to encourage the spread of ICT throughout the business world," he said at a conference on investment organised by the government in association with Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and Confederation of Indian Industry.

Maran said to maximise the gains (from outsourcing), a better course of action could be to speed up some measures in an attempt to field as many winners as possible.

The minister said India is a mother country of off-shore outsourcing with a market share of 70-90 per cent and export of software and services which stand at $12 billion would grow to $38 billion by 2008.

Maran said apart from cost, another factor that was pushing off-shoring was availability of skilled manpower in India.

"Currently just over 5000 IT graduates in Germany and 25,000 in US enter labour market every year as against 1,20,000 in India making it a preferred country," he said.