Global crisis to indirectly affect India: FM

Taking strong exception to industry chamber Assocham’s forecast that a quarter of people in certain key sectors will lose jobs in the next ten days, government on Friday said the economy is poised for the other way.

“The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and my colleague Jairam Ramesh (Minister of State for Commerce) have taken serious exceptions to an Assocham report… The pace of job creation may slow down but that doesn’t mean that jobs are being destroyed,” Finance Minister P Chidambaram said in New Delhi.

The Minister further said another industry chamber FICCI too had contradicted the Assocham study, which had said that in the next ten days or so about 25 to 30 per cent employees are likely to lose jobs in seven sectors including aviation, information technology, steel, financial services, real estate, cement and construction.

Chidambaram further said that 7 per cent growth rate, the lowest projection made by experts, would “create more job than was done in entire NDA regime, when the growth was only 5.8 per cent. Why this question was not raised when the economy was growing at 5.3 per cent?”

Replying to questions on the recent report on slowing of the US economy, the Minister said, “when the world output slows down, the growth in developed countries slows down… it will have an indirect impact on India.”

However, he added, “the India economy is domestic consumption and investment driven economy. Exports will play a significant role but not as much as they do in China.”