Developed world must shield
countries like India: Chidambaram
By Girish Bhaskar
On
Board Air India One, Nov 14 (IANS) Countries like India that
drive global economic growth today shouldn't be made to suffer
the impact of the current financial crisis and must get more
funds to ease their burden, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram
has said, ahead of the G20 Summit in Washington.
"We
must not forget that there are only a handful of economies
that are driving the world economic growth and among them
are China and India and a few other countries,” said Chidambaram,
a key member of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's delegation
to the Nov 15 Summit.
"So
it is very important that these few countries shouldn't suffer
in the period during which we grapple with the economic crisis,”
he told reporters inside the prime minister's special aircraft
while on his way to the Summit.
“More
resources must be made available to these countries, including
India, so that they can continue to grow."
Planning
Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahuwalia, who will
be Manmohan Singh's “sherpa” at the Summit, and Economic Affairs
Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla, are also part of the delegation
and have already reached the US capital for official-level
talks.
The
finance minister said the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
had failed in the role of pre-empting the financial crisis
and that the group of seven rich nations (G7) was too small
and narrow a formation to address the issues.
"The
key point is, we must agree to a new order of global oversight,”
he said, adding: “A more inclusive system can provide better
surveillance and serve as an early warning mechanism.”
Chidambaram
also maintained that if there was effective surveillance,
it could have identified and prevented the risks which some
large international financial entities were taking, exacerbating
the financial tsunami.
“In
the absence of such a surveillance mechanism, these financial
entities, some of which have collapsed, took unacceptable
risk,” he said, adding: "That's what led to the crisis
in the US.”
He
said an effective surveillance mechanism was high on the agenda
for the G20 Summit - called by US President George W. Bush
- but said it was still unclear as to what shape it would
eventually take.
"That's
what we talked about in Sao Paulo and this is what we'll talk
about in the Summit,” he said, referring to the meeting in
the Brazilian city last week among finance ministers and central
bank governors of G20 countries in the run-up to the Washington
Summit.
He,
however, dismissed the suggestion that new Bretton Woods institutions
could emerge from the Summit.
It
was the post-World War-II United Nations Monetary and Financial
Conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944 that
eventually led to the formation of the International Bank
for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), better known as
the World Bank, and the IMF.
"I
don't think regulation can be raised to (the level of) a global
regulator. That's just too ambitious and perhaps not possible
in today's circumstances. Regulation must be national."
Indo-Asian
News Service
Prabuddha
Bharata>>>
Vedanta
Kesari>>>
Vedanta
Mass Media>>>
|