WASHINGTON, Nov 21: Fears of more mass job cuts from the global economic crisis grew on Friday as India warned half a million could go in its textile industry and automakers failed to clinch another bailout from Congress.

Stock exchanges endured another roller-coaster ride at the end of a brutal trading week as Japan said it was ready to take action if necessary to tackle wild swings in its financial markets.

Indian Commerce Secretary G.K. Pillai told reporters in New Delhi that the textile industry, the country’s second-largest foreign exchange earner, will lose half a million jobs by April 2009 due to the global financial crisis.

The sector is estimated to employ around 38 million workers and accounts for about eight per cent of the gross domestic product of Asia’s third-largest economy. The global meltdown claimed another high profile victim as a Russian property developer suspended construction of a Moscow skyscraper that was planned to be Europe’s tallest building, Interfax news agency reported.

Billionaire developer Shalva Chigirinsky was quoted as saying the crisis had forced him to freeze work on the Russia Tower, which is to be 612 metres tall when completed.

More governments meanwhile said they were ready to intervene to protect businesses from the crisis.

But Democrats in the US Congress put off a vote on a $25 billion bailout for the “Big Three” auto manufacturers until at least December and ordered them to come up with a new restructuring plan.

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said it was a “sad reality” that despite a bipartisan deal by senators from states which have millions of jobs depending on the industry, there was not yet sufficient support for a bailout.

The bailout sought by the automakers was to supplement an earlier loan of a similar size from the US energy department.

While the US auto industry was being rebuffed, the head of Ford Germany said the European Union should make around 40 billion euros in loans available to the continent’s ailing auto sector.

Bernhard Mattes said in an interview with Bild that such assistance would not be state aid but was “in order to allow all European carmakers the possibility to meet EU requirements on fuel efficiency and emissions etc more quickly.”

The car industry’s woes were highlighted again when Toyota Motor Corporation announced plans to cut 3,000 temporary jobs at its domestic plants in Japan in response to worsening sales.—AFP