'India should closely monitor forex reserves'

India should closely monitor the foreign exchange reserves, which was 248 billion USD in 2008-09 compared to 309 billion USD the year earlier, Chairman and Managing Director of Export-Import Bank T C Venkat Subramanian has said.

Delivering the convocation address at Thiagarajar School of Management here yesterday, he blamed America for the global economic crisis and said the it turned out to be 'toxic acid for the US economy".

He said the economic meltdown was spread from America and when that country's imports came down, it affected the economy of other countries, including Japan and the European union.

American people had borrowed heavily for their homes without focussing on savings. "Negative savings rate in that country made things worse, affecting the financial system", he said.

He said remittances from Indian workforce was likely to come down by 10 to 15 per cent.

The forex inflow through foreign direct investment, stock markets and foreign institutions had come down from $64 billion to $13 billion. However, he said the IT companies would revive by 2010 throguh cost cutting.