Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that India’s priority is not to impose its dominance but to increase its influence and emphasized that no country, be it America or China, can ignore New Delhi today.
Ms Sitharaman made the remarks during a panel discussion on “Bretton Woods at 80: Priorities for the next decade” organized by the Center for Global Development here on Wednesday.
The minister arrived here on Tuesday to attend the annual meetings of the Bretton Woods institutions – the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
“India’s priority is not to impose its dominance, in the sense that we are the largest democracy in the world, have the largest population, but to increase our influence,” he said.
Emphasizing that one in six people in the world is Indian, he said, “You cannot ignore our economy and the way it is growing.”
Ms Sitharaman stressed that the path taken by developed countries to reach development – from production of textiles, bicycles, bikes etc. – is “no longer available”.
Questioning whether India is in a position to define that path, he talked about the country’s leading role in technology and how Indians have the systems in place to run complex corporate set-ups.
He said, “You can’t really ignore it. Also, the geopolitical neighborhood in which we live. No country, America, which is very far from us, or China, which is very close to us, can ignore us.” Can.” ,
During the discussion, he said that India has “always stood in favor of multilateral institutions” and added that it has followed the policies of “strategic and peaceful multilateralism”.
However, he highlighted that multilateral institutions are failing to deliver viable solutions.
He said, “We did not want to spend time weakening any multilateral institution. But gradually we are seeing that the hopes and expectations that were placed on multilateral institutions have evaporated because we feel that they No solution is emerging.”
“These institutions are no longer offering any alternative path,” he said.
He said that multinational institutions with reserves of information and experience, manpower and human resources should strengthen institutions for the global good, which is “very essential” to strengthen multilateralism.
“We are in favor of multilateralism,” Ms Sitharaman said.
He stressed that the Bretton Woods institutions should act on future developments rather than react to them.
“Unfortunately, over the past few decades, we see them reacting to future developments with their own strength. So, sharing information is one thing,” he said.
“Of course, India has an international solar alliance and biofuel alliance, and we are talking about disaster-resistant infrastructure. All of these need money. All of these need help for those countries. “Those in smaller economies, island economies, that need them.” ” He said.
“So, through the digital public infrastructure that we have publicly funded and delivered to different countries, we are spreading that focus. These are the areas in which India will contribute,” the Finance Minister said.
At a separate roundtable here, Ms Sitharaman said India has created the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) to transform infrastructure systems to build resilience against natural disasters and adapt to climate change.
Chairing the Roundtable on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, he stressed the danger of undermining development gains due to increased climate-induced risks to infrastructure and the critical services it supports.
Ms Sitharaman said that over the past few years, India has ensured resilient economic growth not only by investing in hard infrastructure but also in building institutional capacity through the creation of national and state-level disaster management agencies.
Reassuring India’s commitment to share best practices during this resilience-building visit, the Union Finance Minister extended support to the Global South to address shared challenges. He said India is keen to partner with Africa and other developing countries to strengthen infrastructure resilience.
He said that under the G20 India Presidency, a Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group was created to enhance commitment to disaster and climate-resilient infrastructure and to prioritize strong national financial frameworks for disaster risk reduction.
The Minister also participated in the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable (GSDR).
In their interventions, they called for prioritizing coordinated efforts to improve timeliness, transparency and predictability, ensure comparability of treatments among creditors, and ensure low-cost, long-term financing and strengthen fiscal capacity to build resilience in vulnerable countries. Emphasis was laid on providing targeted technical assistance for
Ms Sitharaman called for deeper talks to help countries meet debt obligations without compromising critical investments. They also cautioned against contingent financing instruments as these could result in delayed obligations, worsening future debt challenges.
He encouraged them to take advantage of the informal forum of the GSDR to better understand the perspectives of all parties, address concerns, and provide informed guidance to countries on the risks and benefits of these instruments.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
