India will not achieve the $200 billion trade target fixed for the current fiscal but the government and the Reserve Bank of India are closely monitoring both domestic and international economic developments, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
"The global economic downturn has impacted exports ... we expect to achieve $170-175 billion exports," Minister of State for Industry Ashwani Kumar said.
He pointed out that the government had set a trade target of $200 billion for 2008-09 while announcing the annual supplement to the Foreign Trade Policy on April 11 last year.
"The government and the RBI are closely monitoring both the domestic and international economic developments," Kumar said adding, the RBI has already taken a number of steps to reduce the cost of credit and improve liquidity for trade and industry.
The RBI had reduced the repo rate, reverse repo rate, statutory liquidity ratio, cash reserve ratio among other steps to improve liquidity.
Kumar said the impact of the slowdown in exports has been more pronounced in sectors like gems and jewellery, textiles and garments, handicrafts, automobiles, leather and leather products, marine products and plastic and linoleum.
He admitted that the economic downturn has affected employment in these sectors and the government is focussing on creation of new jobs to mitigate the problem.
