The world is watching G20's steps to tackle financial instability emanating from eurozone periphery”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told leaders meeting in this southern French resort town on Thursday that the entire world was watching and that “our summit will be judged by our ability to deal with financial instability emanating from the eurozone periphery.”
In the face of uncertainty over events in Greece, Dr. Singh said he hoped “ways can be found to manage the situation so that a package can be put in place as quickly as possible.”
Dr. Singh's tete-a-tete with French President Nicolas Sarkozy was postponed due to an emergency meeting of eurozone leaders. Aides are attempting to reschedule the meeting, which will most likely take place on Friday afternoon. Dr. Singh met his counterparts from Brazil, China, Russia and South Africa at the invitation of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
LIQUIDITY REQUIREMENTS
In his address to the G20 during a working lunch, Dr. Singh said India supported the International Monetary Fund's role in restoring stability in Europe. However, “the IMF must also keep in mind the liquidity requirements of developing countries who are not at the centre of the crisis, but may nevertheless be adversely affected as innocent bystanders.”
Orchestrating a broad-based recovery and sustainable growth in industrialised and developing countries was what the Mutual Assessment Process, decided upon at the last G20 summit, is meant to do. “The task of restoring fiscal sustainability over the medium-term calls for very different policy prescriptions,” Dr. Singh said.
Stressing the need to intensify and deepen the Mutual Assessment Process, he said the global community must focus on structural reforms in all G20 countries to increase efficiency and competitiveness over the medium-term. “This would help revive the animal spirit of investors, which is necessary to allow us to shift the burden of sustaining demand from the public to private sector. Such rebalancing is necessary to make the recovery sustainable. We in India are taking steps to ensure a return to high growth.”
The Prime Minister also told the assembly that short-term problems of financial instability should not be allowed to cloud the development needs of poor and emerging economies whose nascent growth is threatened by “slowing trend growth in developed countries.” Since multilateral development banks played a major role in mobilising and deploying global savings, the G20 should “raise its level of ambition for these institutions” so that they can play a transformational role.
Dr. Singh warned against the introduction of regulatory reforms such as a financial transaction tax as suggested by industrialist Bill Gates in his report on boosting development finance in the world. The Prime Minister said he was against reforms that “would end up hampering the developmental goals” of the emerging and poor nations. He called on the G20 to send a strong message to curb tax evasion and illicit capital flows.
Earlier, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, briefed journalists on the Prime Minister's discussions with other leaders. Pointing out that India had no quarrel with “bilateral generosity,” Mr. Ahluwalia said India's preference was for concerted action through the IMF — “through various mechanisms.” The quotas of countries could be increased or members could loan money using the IMF as a conduit for investment.
04.11.2011- The Hindu
The way forward for SAARC will be to prioritise, select a few modest projects capable of being delivered within a reasonable time frame, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris has said.
“If that is successful, then that will generate a momentum…Then there will be confidence. It is an institution that has great potential,” he said and added that if very broad themes were taken up, then SAARC would degenerate into “a kind of talk shop. We should not take on too much.”
On the talk of strengthening the SAARC secretariat in Kathmandu, he said that SAARC countries might not look favourably on proposals that would have substantial financial implications. “I also anticipate that many countries will resist an expansion of the staff… Money must be spent on development, on projects. Not on creating a bureaucracy,” he said.
Speaking to The Hindu here on Thursday ahead of the 17th SAARC summit, to be held in Addu City, The Maldives next week, Prof. Peiris said that it is necessary for SAARC to develop rapidly as an institution which delivers tangible benefits to the people of these countries. That will be the yardstick against which success of SAARC will really be gauged.
The reality remains that the volume of intra-SAARC trade is at a very low threshold. It needs to be augmented and developed much more. Sri Lanka has had both bilateral and multilateral approaches to intra-SAARC trade. Sri Lanka has bilateral trade relations with India and with Pakistan. With India, the FTA came into effect in 2000, and with Pakistan, 2005. It has resulted in considerable benefits. “But one is not required to choose between bilateral and multilateral exchanges,” he said.
SAARC has to put “a sharp emphasis” on other activities, apart from political and trade issues. “SAARC University in New Delhi is up and running. The idea is that we should have the main university in New Delhi and due course chapters in other countries,” he said.
Another proposal that was being considered favourably was put forth by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on a conclave of young parliamentarians. “In all our parliaments, the proportion of young people in the 35-40 age group are significant,” he said.
Countries in our part of the world have to take a definite stand on some countries of the world monopolising multi-lateral and other institutions. 90 per cent of countries that participated in CHOGM strongly rejected the proposal to appoint a Commissioner for Human Rights. “It found firm resistance…These are intrusive mechanisms. These mechanisms are wielded by the West,” he said.
ALL HEADS OF STATE TO ATTEND
Maldivian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Naseem said that, Head of States from the SAARC region will be taking part in the 17th SAARC Summit to be held in Addu City
04.11.2011-The Hindu
Russia has cleared the last barrier on its 18-year-long road to join the World Trade Organisation after reaching a bilateral trade deal with Georgia.
Russia and Georgia are expected to sign a formal agreement next week paving the way to Russia's accession to the WTO at the group's ministerial meeting in December.
Russia, with a GDP of $1.9-trillion, is by far the largest economy outside the WTO and its entry would mark the biggest step in world trade liberalisation since China joined in 10 years ago. The World Bank has estimated WTO membership could add 3 per cent to Russia's economy in the medium term and up to 11 per cent in the long term. However, many economists warn that Russian agriculture and manufacturing industries may not be able to compete with cheaper imports. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last month the costs and benefits of WTO membership were “50-50, but over all there are probably more pluses than minuses”.
The breakthrough announced late on Wednesday came after Georgia, which lost its breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in a five-day war with Russia in 2008, dropped its demand that the Russian border with two now independent regions be referred to the “Georgian-Russian border”. Under a compromise arrangement Russia for its part agreed to have international monitors deployed on trade crossings of its border with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Russia's entry into the WTO will open the way for India and Russia to sign a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), a free trade pact the two countries have long finalised but could not seal because Russia was not a WTO member.
The CECA pact is expected to give a boost to bilateral trade between India and Russia by providing a greater market access for the partners. Indo-Russian trade touched $8.5 billion last year, growing three-fold since 2005, but falling short of the $10-billion target the two countries had set for 2010. New Delhi and Moscow now hope to increase bilateral trade to $20 billion by the year 2015.
04.11.2011-The Hindu
China's space programme on Thursday hailed its first ever docking exercise in outer space, conducted by an unmanned spacecraft, launched this week, with a space laboratory module — a step seen as a crucial landmark along China's road to launch its own space station in the next decade.
Early on Thursday, the unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 docked with the Tiangong-1 laboratory module which was launched on September 29, a development described by the China space programme as a “major technological breakthrough”.
China is now only the third country to accomplish a docking exercise in space, after the United States and Russia. Both those countries carried out similar exercises more than three decades ago.
While China still continues to lag the two countries in its space technology, Beijing hopes to close the gap by becoming the third country to put into orbit its own space station, by 2020 — the year the International Space Station is brought down.
Thursday's docking exercise between Tiangong-1 and Shenzhou-8, which will fly together for 12 days and conduct another docking exercise, was hailed by Chinese leaders as a vital step towards taking forward the space programme.
“Breakthroughs in and acquisition of space docking technologies are vital to the three-phase development strategy of our manned space programme,” said President Hu Jintao.
With recent rapid advancements in its space programme, China's commercial satellite industry has widened its reach overseas, launching satellites for more than 20 countries. China's investments in expanding its space programme have also stirred concern among some countries, considering the military dimensions of the technology. The official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary on Thursday China “always expresses willingness to open its space vessels and facilities to the international science community”.
“There are more resources in space for humans to explore, which is an impetus for China to boost its outer space adventure, particularly after the International Space Station (ISS) was announced to retire by 2020,” said the commentary. “If completed in around 2020 as planned, the China-made space station might replace the ISS to harbour internationally collaborative space science experiments.”
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