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India's exports to US to be affected in short term: DGFT

Indian exports are likely to be affected in the immediate future due to closure of commodity and financial markets in the US following the terrorist attacks, a senior foreign trade official said on Thursday.

"Trade essentially is by definition movement of goods and whenever that is disrupted, there will be an impact. The impact (the disruption in the market due to the attacks) will be quite substantial in the immediate period," director General of Foreign Trade, N L Lakhanpal said.

He however, added that the extent of the impact on India's exports will depend on the time taken by the US markets to recover.

"The markets are likely to recover within a week's time. However, if the recovery is delayed the impact could be more," he said.

Meanwhile, official sources also said that the commerce ministry had begun an internal assessment of the impact of the attacks on US, on India's exports.

"The process of contacting exporters and seeking their assessment of the changed situation has already begun for all the sectors," they said.

Commodity markets in New York have been severely affected with both sugar and coffee trading remaining closed Thursday.

The sugar market in New York was likely to remain closed till next Monday while trading in New York coffee was also not likely to begin until next week.

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