WASHINGTON, March 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Foreigners outsourced far more office work to the United States than American companies send abroad in 2003, reported the Wall Street Journal on Monday.

    The value of US exports of legal work, computer programming, telecommunications, banking, engineering, management consulting and other private services jumped to 131.01 billion dollars in 2003, up 8.42 billion dollars from the previous year, the report said.

    Data released by the Commerce Department showed that imports ofsuch private services, meanwhile, hit 77.38 billion dollars for the year, up 7.94 billion dollars from 2002, said the report.

    Measuring imports against exports, the United States posted a 53.64 billion dollars surplus last year in trade in private services with the rest of the world.

    Under government accounting, when a US company opens a technical-support center in a foreign country that handles inquiries from the United States, that is considered a US import of services. When a US lawyer in New York does work for a foreign company or a New York investment banker works on a deal for a foreign company, that is an export of services.

    The report said the number suggests that efforts to restrict outsourcing by US companies may backfire, if they provoke retaliation by US trading partners.

    Economists say that US service exporters -- insurers, for instance -- might lose some competitive edgeif they cannot use foreign suppliers for call centers or other back-office operations,according to the report. Enditem ¡¡