Chandigarh: Signs of recovery in the US and the European economies makes IT and software industry body National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) hopeful of seeing double-digit growth in the country’s IT exports sector.

“We feel that IT software and service exports will attain growth in double digit in next financial year on the back of revival of economies of US and Europe which were hit by meltdown,” Nasscom chairman Pramod Bhasin told reporters on the sidelines of an event.

Nasscom had earlier projected that the country’s software and IT exports would grow merely by 4-7% to $48-50 billion in 2009-10 in view of sluggish demand for outsourcing in the US and Europe, which are the largest markets for the Indian IT vendors.

In 2008-09, the industry grew by over 16% at $46.3 billion.

Bhasin further said the country had the potential to achieve IT exports of $225-300 billion while the total direct employment in IT sector expected to reach from 4 million to 14 million in the next five years.

However, he found the lack of suitable human skills for the IT sector a major hindrance in its growth.

“Only a small faction of graduates are employable in the industry as our curriculum is outdated,” he said while stressing on addressing this issue expeditiously.