India among world's top 7 economies under G-20 scanner

Washington, Apr 16 (PTI) The G-20 has announced that
International Monetary Fund (IMF) would review policies
of the world's seven largest economies, including India and
China, with the objective of rectifying flaws before they
imperil growth.
The US, Japan, Germany, France and Britain are the other
five countries that influence the global economy.
The seven countries would be examined for economically
destabilising policies, such as large government budget
deficits and debt, high personal saving rates and debt, or big
trade surpluses or deficits, the G-20 club said yesterday
after taking the decision at a meeting of member finance
ministers and heads of their central banks.
Further, it said that the group also settled on
approaches for evaluating the causes of the imbalances and
barriers for reducing them.
"We've made huge progress in relation to the framework
for growth," said Christine Lagarde, Finance Minister, France,
which holds the G-20 presidency this year.
"Seven countries, clearly large economies, were filtered
through the process to go to the second stage of analysis, and
possibly some policy adjustments will be recommended for them,
" Lagarde said.
The agreements reached Friday underscores the important
role of the IMF in the G-20 evaluations, noted The Wall Street
Journal. IMF will conduct its evaluations based on methods the
G-20 members have developed.
"We did find an agreement on the indicative guidelines,"
which was one of the objectives of the meetings, Lagarde said.
"While not policy targets, these guidelines establish
reference values for each available indicator allowing for
identification of countries for the second step in-depth
assessment," said the G-20 Communiqué.
It added, "Our aim is to promote external sustainability
and ensure that G20 members pursue the full range of policies
required to reduce excessive imbalances and maintain current
account imbalances at sustainable levels."