November 12, 2010 2:11 PM

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PM calls for rebalancing the global economy

Prime Minister today said funds from surplus countries must be pumped into the infrastructure development of poor and emerging economies to avoid global destabilisation of economy. Calling for a new rebalancing of global economy, Dr Manmohan Singh said, recycling surplus savings into investment in developing countries will not only address the immediate demand imbalance, it will also help to address developmental imbalances. Addressing the plenary session of the G-20 Summit in South Korean city of Seoul, he said, infrastructure is a critical constraint to rapid and inclusive growth in most emerging markets and we need to find innovative ways of meeting the enormous costs of infrastructure development. He said, economic performance of emerging markets including several in sub-Saharan Africa had improved vastly in recent years, as was the case with emerging market countries like India that can attract more investment.The Prime Minister urged G-20 countries to avoid competitive devaluation of currencies at all cost and resist any resurgence of protectionism. He said, advanced deficit countries must follow policy of fiscal consolidation consistent with their individual circumstances so as to ensure debt sustainability over the medium term. Dr. Singh said, while structural reforms are necessary, these should increase the efficiency and competitiveness in deficit countries while expanding internal demand in surplus countries. The Prime Minister said, though this re-balancing will take time but it must begin. He said, exchange rate flexibility is an important instrument for achieving a sustainable current account position and the policies must reflect this consideration.Prime Minister said, major industrialized countries are running unsustainable current account deficits which have to be reduced to manageable levels. He added that if this is not to have a contractionary impact on the world economy, it must be offset by reducing current account surpluses elsewhere. He said, the Mutual Assessment Process adopted in Pittsburgh was a unique G-20 initiative to achieve such coordination.Calling for a satisfactory conclusion of the Doha Round of Trade Negotiations of WTO, Dr Singh said, the only way to resist protectionism is to restore momentum to the trade talks. He said, the Seoul Summit is also delivering on the promise of reform of the IMF as they have agreed to a shift in quota shares of 6 per cent to emerging market countries and the composition of Board is being changed to reduce the European representation. He expressed confidence that G-20 will be able to translate the rich agenda before the summit into tangible outcome under the forthcoming Presidency of France next year. The G-20 leaders, at the end of their two-day Summit in South Korean capital, Seoul say they have agreed to avoid the competitive devaluation of currencies and come up with guidelines to tackle global trade imbalances. They have also promised to renew their efforts to reach a world-wide trade deal in talks next year. The Summit communiqu’ has promised to move towards market determined currencies, but China has said this before and there is no time table for it. The Summit also committed to tackle global economic imbalances. The G-20 leaders have asked their Finance Ministers to draw up a set of indicators that will help with the timely identification of imbalances that require preventive and corrective actions to be taken. Ministers will work with the international Monetary Fund on developing the guidelines, with progress to be discussed next year.

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