PM seeks major reforms of international financial institutions

I / Rome July 07, 2009, 14:55 IST

Ahead of the G-8 meeting tomorrow, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for significant reforms of the international financial institutions to address global problems and asserted that India would seek its due place in such institutions.

Singh, who will be meeting U S President Barack Obama and other world leaders at the G-8 meeting with five outreach countries including India, said these institutions need to reform decision-making and ensure effective delivery to adequately reflect ground realities.

India, he said, was deeply committed to multilateralism and will "seek its due place, play its destined role and share its assigned responsibility, giving voice to the hopes and aspirations of a billion people in South Asia".

In an article in the compendium on contemporary global issues brought out for the summit, Singh said India will strive for the reform of the UN to make it more democratic.

"The Security Council has not changed at all and its present structure poses serious problems of legitimacy. The system of two-tiered membership, which gives a veto to the five permanent members i.E. The nations that emerged victorious after the Second World War, is clearly anachronistic," he said.

The Prime Minister noted that Germany and Japan, which have significantly larger economies than Britain and France, both permanent members, were excluded.