India has a large well-educated English-speaking workforce

Multinational companies have long been relocating to Asia to take advantage of cheaper labour, but now even investment banks seem to be seeing the advantages.

At the vanguard of the trend is JP Morgan, which is moving some of its economic research work to Mumbai, formerly Bombay, in India.

The research work is typically carried out by analysts who study companies and write reports on their stock for investors.

JP Morgan, which believes it can take advantage of lower salaries paid to financial service workers in India, will employ Indian graduate economists at junior grades.

The firm says it plans an overall increase in staffing worldwide and the creation of an economic research team in Mumbai will not lead to job losses in other centres such as London or New York.

Suitable workforce

Nick O'Donahoe, JP Morgan's global head of equity research, told the BBC's World Business Report that the firm would be looking for highly qualified English-speaking analysts.

He does not think that there will be any concerns about research being done by people based thousands of miles away.

Principal analysts will not be based in India. Workers there will concentrate on the data collection and valuation that goes into preparing an equity research report.

"There will be some scepticism, but at the end of the day people are going to judge the quality of the work by what they see," Mr O'Donahoe said.

"We think we can produce work every bit as high in quality in India as we can in any other centre."