By IANS,
On Board Air India One : Fresh from a summit in Washington to find a solution to the global financial crisis, Prime Minisster Manmohan Singh Sunday said the balance of power in this globalised world was shifting to emerging economies like India.
“This is for the first time there was a sincere dialogue between the major developed countries and the major emerging economies,” the prime minister said on his way back from Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy hosted by US President George W. Bush.
It is clear indication that the balance of power is increasingly shifting in favour of emerging economies, he said, looking visibly pleased that the joint declaration at the Washington Summit among leaders of G20 countris clearly reflected India’s concerns.
India had been invited in the past for dialogue to forums like G8 but was never taken seriously, the prime minister said on his way back to New Delhi.
In a statement released at the conclusion of the Summit, the leaders pledged to take all steps necessary to stabilize the financial system, and noted five common principles on fixing the financial system.
The statement included an agreement to meet again by April 30 next year by when their host US President George W. Bush would have handed the charge of the world’s largest economy to president-elect Barack Obama.
Earlier, seeking a global response to the financial crisis, Manmohan Singh called for a multi-pronged response to arrest the deepening recession and avoid another one in future.
“Since the crisis is global, it calls for a co-ordinated global response and this summit is therefore, timely,” he said.
The summit brought together leaders from Group of Seven industrial nations, a dozen emerging markets like India, China, Brazil, and South Africa and the European Union. These 20 together account for 90 percent of global economy.
Among the measures suggested by Manmohan Singh were a coordinated fiscal stimulus to mitigate the severity and duration of the recession, special initiatives to counter the shrinkage of capital flows to developing countries and a reform of the global financial architecture to prevent similar crises in future.