India calls for more financial resources for developing countries

By Li Xing (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-06-15 12:12

India calls for more financial resources for developing countries
Indian Ambassador to China Nirupama Rao. [China Daily/file photo] 
Brazil, India, Russia and China should enhance their collaboration in improving the management of the world economy and financial institutions, Nirupama Rao, Indian Ambassador to China, told China Daily, prior to the opening Tuesday of the first summit of Brazil, India, Russia and China, or BRIC, the four world's leading emerging economies.

"India maintains that BRIC's potential importance lies in cooperating on global economic and economic governance issues which require a coordinated approach through high level, continuous exchange of views," she said in an interview via email.

Stressing that the four economies will contribute a lot to the economic recovery in the world, Rao said India has introduced aggressive monetary and fiscal policies that helped the second populous country in the world to maintain its growth and will spend 4 percent of GDP for the fiscal stimulus plan for 2008-09. India’s GDP growth was close to 9 percent in the previous five years, but has fallen just below 7 percent.

However, she noted that many other developing countries are not faring as well, with their investment and exports drying up.

As a result, "India is advocating increase in capital of international financial institutions and greater devolution of financial resources to developing countries with fewer conditions attached in order to help their economies to grow," Nirupama Rao, Indian Ambassador to China, told China Daily.

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"India is also calling upon all countries to avoid protectionism and use of unfair trade practices that distort and inhibit international trade," she said India, along with other BRIC countries, is also pushing for "stronger regulation and improved supervision of financial institutions and a greater say of emerging economies in decision making in international financial institutions", she said.

Recalling the series of exchanges among BRIC countries that have led up to the summit, she said the dialogue among the BRIC countries is "based on mutual trust and respect, common interests and coincidence or similarity of approaches toward the pressing problems of global development."

"BRIC countries have a strong commitment to multilateral diplomacy in dealing with common challenges to international security," she said.

Apart from global financial crisis, she said the four countries can also deal with other "current global challenges more effectively," such as climate change, energy security, food security, international financial structures, global development agenda, UN reform, terrorism, non-proliferation.

"These are all issues which are of crucial global importance and on which there is substantial identity of views among the BRIC countries," she said.

Highlighting the growing dialogue and interation between China and India, she said: "Such cooperation and coordination can contribute significantly to the realization of our collective vision of a harmonious and equitable world order."

Although the rising of the BRIC countries has won the world's appreciation, some have alleged that their further development would exceed "the ability of the global economy to supply".

Refuting the allegation, Rao said: "I do not think that anyone can seriously question the right of developing countries to pursue the eradication of poverty and raising living standards of their people.

"Per-capita emissions and energy consumption of countries like India are a fraction of that in the developed world," she said.

And India as well as other developing countries are also looking for "less wasteful and more environmentally sustainable paths to development than what has been followed by developed nations".

"For this, it is necessary to ensure the flow of technology and financial resources to developing countries," she said.
 
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