India to push for expansion of WB capital

Lalit K Jha

Pittsburgh, Sep 24 (PTI) India will push for the
expansion of the capital of the World Bank, similar to that of
the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a top Indian official
said on Thursday, ahead of the key G-20 Summit on Friday to
review the progress made to check the global economic crisis.

"From our point of view, we would also like to have
the Capital of the World Bank to be expanded and of course
there is the whole question of climate change which is very
much on the agenda in the run up to Copenhagen," said Meera
Shankar, the Indian Ambassador to the United States.

Shankar told reporters on the eve of the start of the
two-day G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh that one of the issues that
is being discussed is "the issue of financing for climate
change for developing countries and I think there is the view
that this should be done through the existing multilateral
financial institutions".

"While that is something which can be considered, we
feel that there should be net additionality of funding and
should not detract from the existing orientation and existing
missions of these institutions," she said.

Shankar said this was one of the suggestions made by
the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the first G-20 meeting
that many poor developing countries will be very adversely
effected by the economic crisis and argued that there is a
need to provide additional capital to the multilateral
institutions so that they are in a position to respond quickly
to any crisis requirements from these countries. (MORE) PTI