Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has called upon the G-20 nations to plan for an orderly ‘exit’ when the time is right and added that the time is not now. Addressing the Plenary session of the G-20 in Pittsburgh on Friday he urged nations to make a commitment against any premature withdrawal of the stimulus. The Prime Minister pointed out that the global economy may be bottoming out but is expected to reach 3 per cent growth only by 2010.<br/><br/>It may be recalled that in the London meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors earlier this month some developed countries had mooted the idea of an early exit strategy from the stimulus packages.<br/><br/>Strongly pleading the case of developing nations and advocating expansion of investment in developing countries to boost domestic demand and keep the engines of growth moving, Dr Manmohan Singh said an obvious area where additional investment is needed in developing countries is infrastructure: energy, transport and other infrastructure for public services. His speech marked by economic hindsight put forward such investments as an ideal form of countercyclical activity. He called upon the World Bank and other regional development banks to increase lending for infrastructure till capital markets recover. Calling for expanding the capital base of the IBRD, Dr Manmohan Singh warned that lending will be compressed to pre-crisis level if capital was not increased. He said such a situation was unacceptable.<br/><br/>While lauding the measures taken by the G-20 to increase the flow of assistance as an important achievement in international cooperation, Dr Manmohan Singh underlined that the scale of transfers cannot counter the effect of the loss of exports.<br/><br/>His address spoke of the difficulties that the global crisis has created for the developing countries whose growth as a group will fall to 1-5 per cent in 2009, implying a fall in real per capita income. An estimated 90 million people in the developing world are likely to be pushed below the poverty line. Lower revenues will lead to lower spending on rural infrastructure, health and education and delay the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. India in spite of the drought is expected to grow by around 6-3 per cent in 2009-10 and then recover to 7 to 7-5 per cent but the prime minister warned that India’s resilience should not be taken to mean that the crisis has not affected the developing countries<br/><br/>Turning to export markets the Prime Minister exhorted the G-20 nations to resist protectionism which is a natural reaction when growth is low and unemployment is high. Noting that the Delhi Ministerial round had succeeded in reviving the Doha round of negotiations he called upon developed nations to take the lead in bringing the trade talks to a successful outcome.