Reuters Group PLC, a major international provider of financial news and information, plans to outsource nearly 20 editorial jobs to India. Reuters will hire 40 journalists to set up a newsroom in Bangalore to carry out various editorial duties being outsourced from the agency’s more expensive newsgathering centers, a company spokeswoman said.

The Bangalore staff will focus on providing information about small and medium-sized companies that are traded in the United States, spokeswoman Susan Allsopp was quoted as saying in the Newsday.

The Indian operations will compile tables of financial data that accompany longer stories written by Reuters journalists elsewhere in the world as well as provide information from news releases and filings to national regulatory authorities such as the U.S. securities and Exchange Commission.

Reuters already employs 300 people in Bangalore at another center for the collation of financial market data for the customers of its information terminals.

(Compiled from news dispatches by M. Chooki)