US Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry hopes to encourage American companies to keep jobs at home by discouraging through tax incentives both offshoring of manufacturing jobs to countries like China and outsourcing of call centre and other information technology jobs to countries like India, his campaign officials said.

Through tax concessions, Senator Kerry will also encourage American companies to keep their money at home instead of parking it in tax havens, they said.

• India and Outsourcing: Complete Coverage

In essence, they said, Kerry will offer a trade-off: He would cut taxes on US corporations in exchange for forfeiting current tax benefits for moving money and jobs overseas.

Through these proposals, The Washington Post said, Kerry is seeking to position himself as a moderate, pro-business Democrat similar to President Bill Clinton and beat back charges, that President George W Bush is making daily with some effect, that Kerry is a tax-and-spend liberal.

The Kerry offensive, said the Post, illustrates the centrality of economic issues in the Presidential elections coming November.

As Kerry's economic team was rolling out the new plan, Bush was airing a new TV advertisement accusing Kerry of supporting tax hikes on social security recipients and gasoline and touting his own different economic vision.

Bush's remedies for joblessness is free trade, opening of foreign markets where 95 per cent of America's actual and potential customers buy and sell, and job training at home to prepare American workers to get jobs better than those that are offshored.