US realises that Indian IT is key to competitiveness: Wipro

"I think there is an increasing realisation that Indian IT is key to competitiveness of corporate America in the globalised world," Wipro Joint CEO (IT Business) Suresh Vaswani said, hailing Obama's visit as beginning of a new era.

"There is a realisation that the relationship is a win-win for both the countries and there is a large untapped opportunity to develop two-way trade, which is helping create thousands of jobs in both countries," Vaswani said, adding that it is time to move away from the stereotypes and tap the opportunity that exists in India.

Concerns have been raised over rising unemployment in the US and Obama's visit to India was expected to see issues around outsourcing being discussed.

Obama commented on outsourcing work to overseas locations like India costing Americans their jobs.

Besides, in possibly a heartbreaking statement for the Indian IT industry, which gets over 60 per cent of its business from the US, he said, "...there still exists a caricature of India as land of call centres and back offices that costs American jobs. That's a real perception."

A fragile economic recovery, along with high unemployment levels, has seen US taking a number of steps -- like hiking Visa fee for professionals --  that are being viewed here as protectionist measures. Unemployment rate in the US was 9.6 per cent for the month of October.

Earlier, Obama had also suggested that tax breaks could be ended for companies outsourcing work overseas.

Obama, who was on a three-day visit to India, had said, however, "the US sees a potential to sell exports in one of the fastest growing markets in the world."