By IANS,
New Delhi : As the US called for a summit meeting Nov 15 on the global financial meltdown, France has made a renewed pitch for involving India and other major emerging economies to evolve a new mechanism to prevent such a crisis in the future.
“We want an enlargement of G-8 to G14. You can’t reasonably address global economic issues without involving major emerging economies like India, China and Brazil,” a French diplomat, who did not wish to be named, said.
“France is eager to learn from the Indian experience specially as the Indian Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) is an economist who has been involved in international financial dealings,” the diplomat added.
“Likewise, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has a strong international exposure in financial matters. We wish to know how developing countries have been affected by the present difficulties,” he said.
“We have to set up a new mechanism to prevent repetition of such incidents,” he said.
Calling for an expansion of the G8 to include influential developing countries like India and China, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had called for the participation of these countries to address issues thrown by the current crisis at the India-EU summit in Marseilles Sep 29.
US President George W. Bush plans to host a summit meeting on the global financial crisis Nov 15, bringing together world leaders from the Group of 20 developed and developing countries including India.
The first in a series of conferences aimed at reforming the international financial system, the summit, to be held 11 days after the US presidential election, will include leaders of the Group of 20, the White House announced Wednesday.