Neither the US nor China can ignore India today: Sitharaman

Washington:

India’s priority is not to impose its dominance but to increase its influence, said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, asserting that no country, be it the US or China, can ignore New Delhi today.

Sitharaman made the comments on Wednesday during a panel discussion on “Bretton Woods at 80: Priorities for the Next Decade” organized by the Center for Global Development here.

The minister arrived here on Tuesday to participate in 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 we have in the world, the largest population, but to increase its influence,” she said.

Stating that one in every six people in the world is Indian, she said, “You cannot ignore our economy and the way it is growing.”

Ms. Sitharaman stressed that the path that developed countries took, from production of textiles, cycles, bicycles, etc., to development, “is no longer available”.

Questioning whether India was in a position to set this path, she spoke about the country’s leading role in technology and how Indians have the system to manage complex corporate structures.

“You really can’t ignore that. Also, the geopolitical neighborhood that we live in. No country, the US, which is very far from us, or China, which is very close to us, can ignore us,” she said. .

During the discussion, she said that India has always “remained in favor of multilateral institutions” and added that it has been pursuing policies of “strategic and peaceful multilateralism”.

However, she highlighted that multilateral institutions are failing to produce viable solutions.

“We didn’t want to undermine any multilateral institutions. But progressively we see that the hope and expectations that were placed in multilateral institutions are wasted because we think that no solution is emerging from them,” she said.

“These institutions do not now offer an alternative path,” he added.

She said multinational institutions, with a wealth of information and experience, manpower and human resources, should strengthen institutions for the global good, which is “very necessary” to strengthen multilateralism.

“We are in favor of multilateralism,” Sitharaman added.

She stressed that the Bretton Woods institutions should work towards this, rather than reacting to future developments.

“Unfortunately, in recent decades, we see that they react to future developments with the force that they have. So information sharing is one thing,” she said.

“India, of course, has an international solar alliance and a biofuels alliance, and we’re talking about disaster-resilient infrastructure. All of that needs money. All of that needs help for countries that are in smaller economies, island economies, that need them,” she said.

“So, through the public digital infrastructure that we publicly finance and bring to different countries, we are spreading that attention. These are areas where India will contribute,” the Finance Minister said.

At a separate roundtable here, Ms. Sitharaman said that India has created the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) to transform infrastructure systems for resilience against natural disasters and adaptation to climate change.

Chairing the Roundtable on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, she highlighted the danger of development gains being undermined by increased climate-induced risks to infrastructure and the critical services they support.

Ms. Sitharaman said that over the years, India has ensured resilient economic growth by not only investing in physical infrastructure but also in building institutional capacity through the creation of Disaster Management Agencies at national and state levels. .

Reaffirming India’s commitment to sharing best practices during this resilience-building journey, the Union Finance Minister extended assistance to the Global South to address shared challenges. She said India hopes to establish partnerships with Africa and other developing countries to strengthen its infrastructure resilience.

She added that under India’s Presidency of the G20, a Working Group on Disaster Risk Reduction has been created to increase commitment to disaster- and climate-resilient infrastructure and to prioritize stronger national financial frameworks. strong efforts to reduce the risk of disasters.

The minister also participated in the Global Roundtable on Sovereign Debt (GSDR).

In her intervention, she highlighted improving timeliness, transparency and predictability, ensuring comparability of treatment among creditors and prioritizing coordinated efforts to secure low-cost, long-term financing and providing specific technical assistance to strengthen capacity fiscal policy to build resilience in vulnerable countries.

Ms. Sitharaman called for deeper dialogue to help countries meet debt obligations without compromising critical investments. She also warned against contingency financing instruments as they could result in deferred obligations, which could worsen future debt challenges.

She encouraged leveraging the GSDR’s informal platform 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.)