By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : The Group of 20 major economies will have a summit meeting here in September to ensure that efforts to make 2010 a year of recovery from the severe global economic crisis are on track.
“The main key thing is that they are committed to ensuring that 2010 becomes a year of recovery,” Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia who represented India at a meeting of G-20 finance ministers here told reporters Sunday.
With many of the decisions taken by the G-20 leaders at their London summit in the process of being implemented, “some of the green shoots of recovery are evident,” he said but cautioned against being overly optimistic.
The outcome is going to be difficult, Ahluwalia said noting that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had projected a contraction of 1.3 percent in global economy this year with expectation of an improvement next year.
India was weathering the economic crisis better than most other countries with its economy expected to grow by 6 percent this year, he said and hoped the Indian economy will also be able to improve next year.
The emerging economies are obviously growing faster than advanced countries. From region to region, Asia is doing well, Eastern Europe is very bad and Latin America is not so good, Ahluwalia said. “Obviously it’s not a very comfortable situation.”
The September summit of G-20 leaders will discuss all the measures and review if they are more or less on track. If not they would suggest a change in course, he said. “So we have to watch the situation.”
Basically the objective of G 20 meeting hosted by US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was to follow up on what the leaders had agreed to in London. “I think there has been some pretty good followup,” Ahluwalia said.
On the issue of providing finance to IMF some very tight deadlines have been laid down, he said noting IMF has introduced a new flexible credit line facility which would enable countries with good track record, which certainly need the money, to get short-term money without initial conditionality.
“They have tied up half the money and are trying to tie up the other half,” Ahluwalia said. For this they have approached several countries including India, but those negotiations are yet to be sorted out.