Lux'bourg to ease visa regime for Indian pros

Luxembourg, a key financial centre of Europe, has indicated it would ease the visa regime for Indian professionals in certain specific sectors.

"We will look at relaxing visa rules in specific sectors," Luxembourg's economic minister Jeann Krecke said when a group of visiting Indian journalists here said the visa regime in Europe as a whole was not friendly to movement of professionals from India especially in the information technology sector.

"India", he said, "has a big pool of highly-skilled people and some countries of Europe are afraid of competition".

Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, who will pay a five-day visit to India from February 19 this year, said his government would consider upgrading the Luxembourg embassy in Delhi as it did not have the facility to issue visas.

The curbs on access to European service market to Indian professionals has been a sore point in ties between New Delhi and European Union.

However, there is hope that Luxembourg could take a lead in changing the scenario as the country gets a daily dose of more than 100,000 people from its three neighbours Germany, France and Belgium who come to this country for employment.