Telecoms giant BT has hit back at protests over the "export" of jobs.
The company said call centres set up in India a few months ago were already providing a better quality of service than in the UK.
The firm faced complaints from a handful of shareholders at its annual meeting in London yesterday, while union activists paraded a 12ft-high inflatable pink elephant in protest at the jobs "stampede".
But BT Retail chief executive Pierre Danon said the companys two call centres in India, which will employ 2,200 workers by the end of the year, were proving to be a great success.
The centres are up to 40 per cent cheaper than those in the UK.
Mr Danon said the quality of service was "sometimes better" in the India centres.
Despite the performance of the Indian centres, BT was pressing ahead with plans to develop 31 call centres in the UK, staffed by about 17,000 workers, at a cost of £105 million, which "dwarfed" the £3 million being invested in India, he stressed.
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