New Delhi, Nov. 12: Spooked by the sub-prime crisis in the US, industry captains want India to have alternative markets for export.

In a survey conducted by Assocham, 63 per cent of the CEOs said the government should have a contingency plan in place to deal with “the adverse repercussions arising out of the US sub-prime crisis on the domestic economy”. The respondents stressed on an alternative plan mainly for items such as gems and jewellery, textile, garments and apparel, which are exported to the US.

“The US is a very large market and it cannot be substituted by any other country. However, industry must begin to concentrate on other growing markets such as Australia and Japan to prevent our competitors from grabbing new markets,” said .P Lohia, managing director of Indo Rama.

Majority of the CEOs rooted for a contingency plan, while 26 per cent did not feel the necessity of such a knee-jerk reaction. According to them, domestic industry is gaining from the global slowdown. Their argument is that with the rupee getting stronger, import cost of capital goods are declining, giving a leg-up to manufacturing.

Of the 280 CEOs and managing directors who responded to the survey, 176 said local companies needed to find alternative export markets as the US economy was in for a slowdown and domestic exports orders fell by around 40 per cent in the last two months. A Pantaloon Retail official said, “With the rupee getting stronger, apparel exporters have been facing difficult times over the last one year. The sub-prime crisis in the US added to the woes and the industry needs to find alternatives to tackle this issue”.