Arun Jaitley to leave for 10-day tour to US, Peru on Saturday

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will leave for 10-day visit to the US and Peru on October 3 to attend IMF-World Bank meetings and give a lecture at a university.

Jaitley will reach New York on October 4. During his US stay he is scheduled to give a lecture at Columbia University.

Thereafter, the Finance Minister will visit Peru to attend annual Fund-Bank meetings to be held in Lima, Peru from October 9 to 11.

Besides the Minister, the Fund-Bank meetings would be attended by RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das and Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian.

Jaitley will also participate in the G-20 finance ministers meeting and BRICS finance ministers meeting on the sidelines of Fund-Bank meetings.

The minister is expected to highlight various reform measures undertaken by India during his intervention at the annual meetings.

He is also likely to pitch for coordinated global action to deal with the black money menace. Besides, India is likely to pitch for quota reforms in the IMF and World Bank.

Jaitley recently underlined the need for voice reforms in the World Bank with a view to according greater say to emerging economies in the activities of the multilateral lending agency.

The issue of voice reforms and increase in capital base of the agency was raised by Jaitley at a meeting with the World Bank Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

India has been seeking voice and quota reforms in multilateral bodies like the IMF and World Bank so that emerging economies could have more clout in the working of these institutions.