PM to push for reforms of global financial institutions

PITTSBURGH: India will push for radical reforms of the international financial institutions and continuance of the stimulus package to speed up the recovery of the crisis-ridden global economy at the G-20 Summit here tomorrow.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who leads the Indian delegation at the summit being hosted by President Barack Obama, is also expected to make a strong pitch to the developed countries to shun protectionism in all its forms.
Singh is also likely to highlight the need for developed countries to bring about stabilisation of the banking and financial sectors as it affected exports, capital flows and investment of the emerging economies, Indian officials accompanying the Prime Minister said.

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla are among the members of the Indian delegation attending the summit.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama are among the world leaders who will address the Summit.

The leaders will share assessments on how they plan to proceed in the coming months to deal with the situation, Indian Ambassador to the US Meera Shankar told reporters here.

The Indian side is expected to make out a strong case for expansion of World Bank capital,similar to that of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

���From our point of view, we would also like to have the capital of the World Bank to be expanded and of course there is the whole question of climate change which is very much on the agenda in the run up to Copenhagen,��� Shankar said.

The G-20 Summit, the third one since the crisis erupted last year, is being attended by the world���s top 20 economies.

Shankar said Finance Ministers of the G-20 who met in London feel that there are signs that the crisis is bottoming out and that eventually countries may have to begin to see how they would phase out some of the extraordinary measures that they have put in place.

The summit is important for emerging economies like India, which have been affected by the global economic crisis not not of its making, to tell the world that there was need to continue the stimulus package that was agreed at the Washington summit last November and a decision to pump in USD 1.1 trillion was decided at the London Summit in April last.

Officials of the Indian delegation said the continuance of the stimulus package was in the interest of the poor countries and the emerging economies and efforts would be made to impress on the advanced economies that they should not not adopt any strategy to exit from it.