London: As part is global cost-cutting plans, banking giant HSBC has reduced employee strength by almost 22,000 during January-September, but ruled out jobs cuts in India as it is a "strategic market and a key profit centre".

The bank had 2,67,000 employees at the end of September, 2012, almost 22,000 lower than that on December 31, 2011.

"This reflected the planned net reduction of staff numbers across the group from organisational effectiveness initiatives and business disposals," HSBC said in a statement today.

The move is part of the London-headquartered bank's plans to reduce its costs by up to $ 3.5 billion by 2013.

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However, HSBC India Chief Executive Stuart A Davis had ruled out job cuts in the country as part of its global recast, saying India is a strategic market and one of the key profit centres and that it is in fact finding it difficult to offset the high attrition rates.

"We achieved a further $ 0.5 billion of sustainable savings in 3Q 12 through our organisational effectiveness programmes. This took our total annualised savings achieved to $ 3.1 billion," it said.

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Last year, HSBC, which is the largest bank in Europe, had announced to shed 30,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2013 as it retreats from countries where it is struggling to compete.