PM: G-20 Summit must Signal Strong Approach to put Global Economy back on Track.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said it was important for the sixth G-20 Summit, to be held in Cannes, France on November 3-4, to signal a strong and coordinated approach to put the global economy back on track, while addressing medium-term structural issues.

"Developing economies such as India need a conducive global economic environment to address the vast challenges they face," Dr Singh said in a statement here this morning before leaving for Cannes to attend the summit.

He said that, in an increasingly interdependent world, India had to be wary of contagion effects and the import of inflationary pressures in its economy.

"We need to ensure that developing countries have access to requisite funds through multilateral development banks and to investible surpluses to meet their infrastructure and other priority needs," he said.

Dr Singh said the Cannes Summit was taking place against the backdrop of the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone.

"This crisis has emerged as the principal source of concern for the global economy. The twin Summits of the European Union and Eurozone a few days ago have helped to restore a measure of confidence in the markets, but much more needs to be done.

"It is imperative that the difficult decisions needed to address the economic challenges in Europe and elsewhere are taken swiftly," he said.

Dr Singh said the Eurozone is a historic project. "India would like the Eurozone to prosper, because in Europe’s prosperity lies our own prosperity," he said.

The Prime Minister said the issue of global governance would also come up for discussion at the summit.

"This is an issue of importance to India, and we will work with others to develop effective and representative global governance mechanisms and carry forward the process of reform of the international monetary and financial system," he said.

During his stay in Cannes, Dr Singh will also hold bilateral meetings with French President Nicolas Sarkozy as well as British Prime Minister David Cameron and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He will also meet European Union leaders Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso.

Dr Singh, who will head the Indian delegation to the summit, will be assisted by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who is also India's Sherpa to the G-20 process.

Briefing journalists last week about the Prime Minister's visit, Mr Ahluwalia said that the G-20 leaders would be looking at the prospects for overcoming the Eurozone difficulties and moving onto a sustainable and more robust global growth plan.

He said the framework for strong and sustainable growth, being worked on by the G-20 countries, would lead to a Mutual Assessment Process (MAP).

"The Mutual Assessment Process includes four Eurozone countries – Germany, Italy, France, Spain – and of course it includes the other countries including of course China and India. So, the Mutual Assessment Process will come forth with a set of what it would regard as the policy priorities in each of these countries which will create the global conditions for a revival of global good," he said.

Mr Ahluwalia said that, clearly, the short-term growth prospects in the global economy were not very good and the main growth rates had been revised downards.

He said the leaders would also discuss other issues, including development, a subject that had been put on the agenda in the Seoul Summit.

"I think the principal concern in the summit is to create a global environment that is fair and which is conducive to rapid growth. Each country has its view on what that global environment should be. We certainly have ours and we would express that," he said.

"I should also mention that there are many items on the agenda which are kind of more directly focused on developmental type issues. For example, agriculture is one of the issues. There is a lot of concern that why are food prices in the world rising? Is that due to demand-supply imbalances in which case you have to address them in a certain way? Or is it due to just too much liquidity fuelling speculation which has to be addressed in a different way?

"There are discussions on things like employment. How do we make sure that the growth process is also going to generate employment? In the industrialized countries there has been a huge change in the level of unemployment in the last two or three years. So, that is something they are very concerned about. But we are also concerned about having a growth process that supports employment in India – open markets, access for our exports and that kind of thing. So, all of these things put together would be covered. Of course there is a traditional development agenda, development assistance, how to finance infrastructure in emerging market countries. So, all of these things will come up," Mr Ahluwalia said.

Source : netindian.in