RBI chief Subbarao to attend IMF conference next month

WASHINGTON: Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvvuri Subbarao will share his perspective at an IMF conference here next month that will discuss policy pursued by various governments in the aftermath of global financial crisis.

The conference will bring together leading academics and policymakers from around the globe, as well as representatives from civil society, the private sector, and the media, according to the IMF.

The conference on 'Rethinking Macro Policy II: First Steps and Early Lessons', will take place at the IMF's Headquarters in Washington, DC on April 16-17.

Subbarao will chair the session on April 17 on Capital Account management that would focus on controls, reserves, international provision of liquidity.

Prior to his appointment as RBI Governor in 2008, Subbarao served as Finance Secretary to the Government of India, and as Secretary to the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council.

The event will be hosted by George Akerlof (University of California, Berkeley and IMF), Olivier Blanchard (MIT, Economic Counselor and Director of Research at the IMF, David Romer (University of California, Berkeley), Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University).

The conference comes against the backdrop of global economic slowdown and divergent monetary policies adopted by the developed and developing nations.

"They (policy makers) have also realised that they have potentially many more instruments at their disposal, from macro prudential tools to unconventional monetary policy. But how to map instruments to targets remains very much a work in progress," Blanchard said.

The three-day annual spring meeting of the IMF and the World Bank is scheduled to be held here from April 19 onwards. Finance Minister P Chidambaram and other senior Indian officials are expected to attend the event.