By IANS,
New Delhi: Amid increasing protectionist policies in the US, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Friday called for coordinated action by G20 countries to make international trade more open and transparent.
“Governments will have to build domestic political support for international policy coordination, wherein some national policies might have to be calibrated to ensure a more optimised global outcome,” Mukherjee said at a conference on G-20 issues organised by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.
G20 has replaced the G8 as the major policy forum for international finance and trade.
The finance minister identified five areas where G20 needed immediate coordination. These are macroeconomic policies and exit strategies, pace of regulatory reforms to ensure financial stability without affecting prospects of growth, reform in the governance of international financial institutions to reflect current economic realities, keeping international trade open and avoiding protectionism, and coordination on climate change and energy issues.
Referring to the global economic crisis, Mukherjee said a coordinated effort should be made to overcome the crisis as no country was insulated from it.
“No country is insulated from the economic crisis and it is turning out to be much deeper and broader than expected,” said Mukherjee, adding the crisis which began from the financial system has become general economic crisis and in many countries a social crisis.
Emphasising the need for coordinated effort by G20 to overcome the crisis, Mukherjee said, “It is a crisis of both the developed and the developing world. Everything is so intricately intertwined that events in one country have a ripple effect across the world.”
However, he said, an alternative to global integration was neither feasible nor desirable.
The fifth summit of G-20 is scheduled to be held in South Korea on Nov 11 and 12. Finance ministers of the group of 20 countries will meet next month to outline the agenda for the summit of the heads of states and governments.
“Credible international economic cooperation is necessary in today’s world. An integrated world economy requires strong cooperation among major economic powers. Without determined cooperation among the principal powers, globalisation is unlikely to survive the inevitable periodical shocks to which it is subjected,” Mukherjee said.