At IBSA meet, India calls for speeding up global financial structure reform

In wake of the global financial crisis, India on Monday called for speeding up of the "long-pending reform"...

In wake of the global financial crisis, India on Monday called for speeding up of the “long-pending reform” of the global financial architecture and stressed on the importance of the emerging economies of the world, including Brazil and South Africa.

External Affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee speaking at the Academic Forum on IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) partnership for shared prosperity and inclusive globalisation said, “IBSA cooperation can expedite the long-pending reform of the international financial architecture to serve our requirements.” “Such turmoil in the global markets further enhances the imperative of South-South cooperation. In these times, we can serve as growth poles for each other. India-Brazil and South Africa, being amongst the leading economies of the three continents are also conscious of their responsibility to other developing countries,” he said.

The recent rise in oil and food prices the world over has also led to “a major concern about development as it affects poor the most”, Mukherjee said. In that context, a discussion on the issues concerning food and energy security is most timely, he said.

Talking about seting up an IBSA Fund for Poverty Alleviation, he stated that this fund has begun to support projects of cooperation in some of the poorest countries such as Guinea Bissau, Haiti, Burundi and Laos. “I believe that the IBSA cooperation has a potential to emerge as a new role model for the South-South Cooperation in the new millennium. We should also exploit the strategic potential of IBSA partnership in building a more inclusive and equitable global economic order. This would include our cooperation along with other co-developing countries in shaping a more development-friendly world trading system that is responsive to our developmental aspirations.”

At a separate meeting of the IBSA editors forum, Mukherjee said that economic and commercial relations among IBSA nations are flourishing. “We have established a target of US $15 billion in intra-IBSA trade by 2010. Investments in all three directions are on the upswing,” he said.