Kashmiri employees working at a call centre in Srinagar in May 2009. India's flagship outsourcing sector, accustomed to double-digit expansion, forecast Wednesday export growth would slide this fiscal year due to the impact of the economic crisis on spending.

India's flagship outsourcing sector, accustomed to double-digit expansion, forecast Wednesday export growth would slide this fiscal year due to the impact of the economic crisis on spending.

Revenues from exports of software and back office outsourcing services rose by 16 percent in the last fiscal year to March to 46.3 billion dollars, the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) said.

But Nasscom said export earnings would grow by just four percent to seven percent in the current year to around 48 billion to 50 billion dollars and blamed a "severe economic downturn in key markets."

"Worldwide information technology spending growth is expected to come down further in 2009 and 2010," the association said in a statement.

US and other foreign firms, drawn by India's vast, educated English-speaking work force and labour costs that are much lower than in the West, have made a beeline for the country, farming out everything from answering bank client calls to processing insurance claims and equity analysis.

But the recession in the United States, which accounts for 60 percent of industry revenues, and other parts of the world has put a crimp on customer spending.

© 2009 AFP