Contrary to the general perception that India was a major beneficiary of global outsourcing, the International Labour Organisation on Friday said the country has emerged as the fifth largest economy in the world in terms of outsourcing to other economies.

"India has turned out to be the fifth largest economy in the world, which outsourced IT and business services to the tune of $11 billion by the end of 2003-04 to the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan," ILO deputy director M Bussi said at a meeting in New Delhi.

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At an ASSOCHAM-organised programme, he said India had spent 2.4 per cent of its GDP in outsourcing of IT and business services as against the US where outsourcing accounted for 0.4 per cent of GDP last fiscal, the chamber said in a release on Friday.

The US spent $41 billion for outsourcing in 2003-04, followed closely by Germany at $39 billion, the UK at $35 billion, and Japan at $16 billion, he said.

India was followed by China in outsourcing to other countries, which spent $8 billion in the last fiscal.

Regretting the trend of critically looking at outsourcing and subsequent job losses, Bussi said although it creates

unemployment initially, it pays off adequately in the long-run as labour market has tremendous scope for adjusting economic distortions created through outsourcing.