Pranab to attend IMF-World Bank meet

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will be leaving on a five-day visit to the US on Tuesday to attend the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank annual spring meetings, which will also deliberate on increasing resources of the IMF to deal with euro zone debt crisis.

The meetings will also focus on rising oil and commodity prices, climate change and disaster management.

The sluggish global economic recovery and speeding up of quota and voice reforms of the IMF are also expected to be discussed during the meetings. IMF has been seeking more capital from member states to effectively deal with global financial problems, especially the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, which is threatening the global economic recovery.

Mukherjee is expected to attending the meetings of the G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors and Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) ministers being organised on the sidelines of the conference.

The Finance Minister is also likely to hold bilateral consultations with US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, UK Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell, Iranian Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Sayed Shamseddin and South Korean Minister of Strategy and Finance Bahk Jaewan.

Besides senior finance ministry officials, Mukherjee will be accompanied by Reserve Bank Governor D Subbarao. Mukherjee is also scheduled to deliver a lecture at Peterson Institute for International Economics on Friday on short and medium term growth prospects for India and the world.

He will also be attending the meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body set up by the G-7 nations for creating global policies and framework to combat money laundering and terror financing. India became the 34th member country of FATF in 2010 and Mukherjee will be the first Indian minister to participate in the conference.

Besides, finance ministers of the G-24 group of nations, comprises 24 developing countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America, would also meet and discuss the issues relating to the emerging economies.

Having taken over as Chairman of G-24 in September 2011, Mukherjee will preside over the meeting. The G-24 as a group seeks to increase representation and participation of developing countries in negotiations on the international monetary system reforms.