KOLLAM: Pravasi Bharatheeya Puraskar winner and industrialist B. Ravi Pillai said that the global economic crisis would start affecting India from 2009. Addressing a meet the press programme at the Press Club here on Wednesday, he said the global economy was facing a shortage of $ 8 trillion. The GDP of India is $ 1.02 trillion . Oil prices have crashed from $ 148 to $ 38 per barrel. Tens of thousands of people are losing jobs in the Gulf countries and in the Western countries. In 2009-10, tens of thousands of people working in the Gulf countries would have to return to India affecting the substantial remittances from the Gulf countries, he said. He said that following the recession, air travel sector in the United States had also been plunged into a crisis. People are avoiding air travel. Due to the shortage of passengers, air travel companies are using small planes to operate services. India would face a decline in export earnings in the coming years due to recessionary trends in the US and Western countries. IT and food products, which constitute a major portion of exports from India, would be the most affected. He said most of the construction works, especially building construction, had been affected by recession. Employers are asking the employees to avail of long leave and return to their native countries and come back when the business starts picking up. He said his ongoing projects in the Gulf would continue till 2010 and was not planning to downsize his 40,000-strong work force . He said $ 1.2 billion worth of projects was under progress in the Gulf countries. Ravi Pillai has no immediate plans to launch any new project in Kerala. The ongoing hotel project in Kollam would be completed and open for business by the end of 2009.