By NNN-PTI
New Delhi : British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Monday asked the World Bank, IMF and the rich nations’ G-8 club to revamp their structure to reflect India’s rising prowess in the global economy.
“I support changes to the World Bank, the IMF and G-8 that reflect the rise of India and rise of Asia,” he said at a breakfast meeting with Indian and British industry leaders here.
He said: “We can and must do more to make our global institutions more representative,” and added that the IMF should work with the same independence given to central banks.
With the financial turbulence spreading out of America, the World Bank and the IMF should prevent such crises rather than resolving them later, he said. “We have to find new ways of dealing with global financial turbulence.”
Noting that India was making powerful contribution to the world economy, Brown said: “In the last 15 years you have doubled your national income” and the country has become the fourth largest producer of medicine and second largest developer of software in the world.
“No global company can be truly global unless it has operations based in India,” the British prime minister told the gathering that included Swraj Paul of UK-based Caparo Group, Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin, Bharti Group head Sunil Bharti Mittal and Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson.
Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said India and China with 40 per cent consumers of the world market would insulate the global economy from slowdown in the west. “Gloom of the west is going to be the boom of the east,” he said.
He praised the British Prime Minister for supporting the free trade under the multilateral arrangement and not helping those engaged in the “economic nationalism” emerging in the western world.
Meanwhile, as India lobbies hard to secure international support for permitting nuclear commerce, Brown said his country would press for an early agreement to a new IAEA-led international system to help non-nuclear states acquire new sources of energy.
However, putting a rider, he said this offer must be made only in return for firm commitments to the highest non-proliferation standards.
Brown did not name India as he said “around the world, we are already seeing significant new interest in nuclear power as a source of energy supply and this increased interest brings with it increased risks of proliferation.”
“So Britain will press for early agreement to a new IAEA-led international system to help non-nuclear states acquire the new sources of energy they need, including through an enrichment bond,” he said.
India has to firm up a safeguards agreement with the IAEA and secure changes in the guidelines of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for implementation of the Indo-US nuclear deal and clearing the way for nuclear commerce.