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NEW DELHI, Nov 23 (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee Friday urged European countries to relax visa restrictions for computer industry experts.

Addressing the final session of the second India-EU business summit in New Delhi Vajpayee identified Information Technology as one of the "priority areas for India and the EU to deepen their economic partnership".

"The expertise of our software professionals is in great demand in the international market, including with many European companies," Vajpayee said.

"Unfortunately, visa restrictions often come in the way of Indian software professionals being able to provide their expertise."

This prevented Indian professionals being "harnessed in full measure, to the loss of both India and the EU," he added.

Vajpayee's appeal came a day after European Commission President Romano Prodi assured a business conference in India's western commercial hub of Bombay that there would be "no discrimination against Asians" while issuing visas.

Prodi wanted to ease concerns that a recent decision by the European Parliament to standardise asylum and immigration procedures in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks could stand in the way of work visas for Indian nationals.

During a visit to India last month, German Interior Minister Otto Schilly signalled tougher screening for Indian work visa applicants because of increased security concerns after September 11.

Schilly told businessmen in the Indian technology capital of Bangalore that Germany was worried terrorists posing as hi-tech experts could take advantage of recent visa relaxations extended to IT professionals from Asian countries.

However on Wednesday Prodi said that any new policy on immigration would "largely evolve around skills whether it is IT or any other service sector".

Indian businesses have often complained of inordinate delays in getting visas for employees to travel to European countries and have called for fast-track processing of travel documents.

The US is the biggest destination for Indian software followed by European countries like Britain and Germany, then Japan and Canada.

The EU was Friday expected to offer a 200 million euro (176 million dollar) grant for education programmes in India.

European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said in New Delhi on Wednesday that the EU would also sign an agreement with India on greater cooperation on science and technology and a joint vision statement on information technology. 

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