In a veiled attack on the United States for restricting outsourcing of business processes, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Friday said sensible economics of pursuing liberalisation in recent years should not be reversed.

"The world has spent the last decade trying to make sensible economics prevail over temptation for short term political gains. We should not now drive a reverse process," Vajpayee said, referring to the "strange controversies" that have been generated in business process outsourcing.

"The very process of liberalisation, on which we have been lectured for so many years has created competitive skills which are available for utilisation by businesses everywhere. Outsourcing is a natural consequence of this process," he told India Today Conclave in New Delhi.

As economists around the world have been pointing out, outsourcing makes businesses more competitive, increases their exports and their profits and places more investable surpluses in their hands, which can be deployed to create more jobs, he said in an apparent attack on the US for its protectionist tendencies on outsourcing from cost-effective destinations like India.