WASHINGTON, March 7: Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told Congress on Wednesday the United States should ease visa and immigration restrictions to help maintain US leadership in high-tech industries.

“For generations, America has prospered largely by attracting the world's best and brightest to study, live and work in the United States,” Mr Gates told a Senate hearing on US competitiveness.

“Unfortunately, America's immigration policies are driving away the world's best and brightest precisely when we need them most.” Gates cited a “terrible shortfall” in highly skilled workers, saying this “stems not from security concerns, but from visa policies that have not been updated in over a decade and a half.” ”This should be deeply troubling to us, both in human terms and in terms of our own economic self-interest,” the Microsoft founder said.

“America will find it infinitely more difficult to maintain its technological leadership if it shuts out the very people who are most able to help us compete.” Gates said he sees “the ill effects of these policies on an almost daily basis at Microsoft.”\

He specifically spoke about the H1-B visa programme frequently used by high-tech firms to bring skilled workers to the United States for up to seven years. US technology firms have complained that the visa limits of 65,000 per year are too low, and Gates echoed those concerns.

“Under the current system, the number of H1-B visas available runs out faster and faster each year,” Gates said.

“The current base cap of 65,000 is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to US industry's demand for skilled professionals.” He said that for fiscal year 2008, starting Oct 1, the H1-Bs “are expected to run out next month, the first month that it is possible to apply for them.

This means that no new H1-B visas -- often the only visa category available to recruit critically needed professional workers -- will be available for a nearly 18-month period.” Gates also said there was “a massive backlog in many of the employment-based green card categories, and wait times routinely reach five years.” He added, “Ironically, waiting periods are even longer for nationals of India and China -- the very countries that are key recruiting grounds for the professionals desperately needed in many innovative fields.”—AFP