Continued visa delays for business travellers, especially from India, China and Russia due to security reasons after the 9/11 attacks has resulted in the loss of more than $30 billion in the US corporate profits, a survey has found.

Due to government delays, business travellers from India, China and Russia had the greatest difficulties obtaining timely visa processing from the United States authorities, according to a survey sponsored by eight trade associations including the Association for Manufacturing and Technology, the National Foreign Trade Council and the US-China Business Council.

Travellers from Malaysia, Indonesia and Korea were also affected, it said.

The estimate includes revenue losses of $25.5 billion and indirect costs of $5.15 billion.
 
"It is a dramatic difference" in the number of companies reporting their businesses being affected by visa rules since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, said Charles Santangelo of the Santangelo Group Inc, which conducted the study for the associations.

According to the findings of the survey, nearly three-quarters of the companies had experienced unexpected delays or arbitrary denials of business visa applications, while 60 per cent said the delays had hurt their companies through increased costs or lost sales.

The report cites examples that include Boeing jets left sitting on a tarmac in Seattle because foreign buyers could not get visas for pilots to retrieve them, Motorola facing the loss of a $10 million contract to supply two-way radios to the Vietnamese government and Lucent Technologies' problems getting visas for 14 Chinese employees needing to come to the US for training.

The severest impact on business came from procedures implemented in July 2002 that require background checks of anyone, including potential foreign business customers, working with technologies deemed sensitive for national security reasons, such as aerospace, chemicals or advanced computers. About 14,000 visa applicants were reviewed under the programme last year, the Financial Times said.

The survey said companies have been reluctant to publicly criticise the US homeland security campaign, in part because they fear they would be accused of jeopardising America's safety or would run afoul of government officials.

However, the US executives who were surveyed said they were concerned that the Bush administration had cast its security net too wide, keeping out legitimate foreign businesspeople, students and tourists.

Janice Jacobs, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, said while serious backlogs occurred in 2002, "we are much, much better than we were."

The trade organisations have issued recommendations including setting a goal of processing all visas within 48 hours, with a maximum limit of 30 days, and establishing a 'gold card' programme that facilitates visa applications for companies with "well-established global operations."