'10 million to lose jobs in export units'

Ten million people in the export sector will be out of job by March this year, as Indian goods find fewer buyers in the international market which is battling the worst crisis since 1929.

"There will be 10 million job losses by March," Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President A Sakthivel told reporters in New Delhi.

Indian exports, which account for just about 20 per cent of the country's Gross Domestic Product, are a highly labour-intensive activity, employing 150 million people.

The country's exports, which posted a robust 30.9 per cent growth rate in the first half of fiscal, contracted by 12.1 per cent in October, for the first time in the last five years. The negative trend continued in November, when exports fell to USD 11.5 billion from USD 12.7 billion. The data for December are yet to be released.

"I can safely say that negative growth trends will continue in December and in the next couple of months... I hope we will end the fiscal with exports of about USD 175-180 billion," Sakthivel said.

FIEO said there was no "serious consideration" for exporters in the measures announced by the government last week.

The target for the current fiscal is USD 200 billion while exports totalled about USD 160 billion in 2007-08.

Europe and North America, which account for 37 per cent of India's merchandise exports, are reeling under recession and slowdown.

The FIEO chief said he did not see positive trends before the fourth quarter of the calendar 2009, "though a complete U-turn may take a little longer", he said.