Pranab to skip G-20 Ministerial meeting in Mexico

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will skip the meeting of G-20 Ministers and governors of central banks in Mexico between February 24-26 as he is pre-occupied with his next Budget, sources said.

"Finance Minister will not be attending the G-20 Ministerial," a source said, adding that RBI Governor D Subbarao will be participating in the three-day deliberations.

Mexico is holding the Presidency of the G-20 this year and the Ministerial deliberations will culminate in the Summit of leaders to be held at Los Cabos later in the year.

Mukherjee has been regularly attending the meetings of the G-20 Finance Ministers and central bank governors.

The Finance Minister is scheduled to present the Budget for 2012-13 on March 16 in Parliament.

Last year, the G-20 Ministerial meetings, in which Mukherjee had participated, were held at Paris.

G20, which is a club of rich and developing nations, has emerged as an important international forum on economic issues and is playing an important role in resolving the global economic crisis.

The meeting of the G20 Ministers comes at a time when the efforts are being made to resolve the sovereign debt problem of the European nations.

The G-20 has also taken on board India's concerns on checking the menace of blackmoney, money laundering and terror financing. India has been pressing for automatic sharing of banking information so as to check transfer of illegal funds to tax havens.

Mukherjee, according to sources, will visit Washington to attend the IMF-World Bank Spring meeting on April 20-22.