Pretoria: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
on Wednesday left here for home, winding up a substantive visit
during which he attended the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA)
Summit that voiced concern over the global economic and
political turmoil.
Singh, who arrived here on Monday, also held bilateral
talks with South African President Jacob Zuma and Brazilian
President Dilma Rousseff and discussed ways to enhance all-
round relations, particularly in trade.
At the 5th Summit of three leading economies, Singh,
joined by Zuma and Rousseff, cautioned that economic crisis in
developed countries could affect developing nations and
pressed for urgent steps by Europe and other advanced
economies to prevent "double-dip" recession.
The three leaders also demanded reform of global
institutions of governance, including UN and financial bodies,
to address current international challenges.
Singh said the world financial and capital markets were
showing signs of "acute distress" due to the negative signals
sent by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and recessionary
trends in the "traditional engines" of global economy -- the
US, Europe and Japan.
Singh, Zuma and Rousseff, who represent the fast
developing economies, discussed the crisis being faced by the
advanced countries at their day-long trilateral Summit and
were in agreement that the situation needs to be prevented
from spiraling out of hand.
"Developing countries cannot remain untouched by the
negative impacts of these developments. Their ability to
address their developmental challenges has been adversely
affected," the Prime Minister said addressing the 5th
India-Brazil-South Africa Summit.
"We hope effective and early steps will be taken by
Europe and other advanced economies to calm the capital and
financial markets and prevent the global economy from slipping
into double-dip recession," Singh said.
With G-20 summit in the offing in Cannes early next
month, he said IBSA countries should coordinate their
positions in the run-up to it to ensure that priorities of the
developing economies are adequately reflected in the
deliberations of the grouping.
He also said that India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA), the
three leading emerging economies, were united in their efforts
to address the deficit in global governance and pressed for
enlargement of the UN Security Council to reflect the present
day reality.
Rousseff said the three leaders were in agreement that
"credible" steps were needed by Europe to stop the situation
from spiraling out of control.
Demanding reform of international monetary and financial
institutions and the UN, she underlined in a statement to the
media after the Summit that "old world order needs to be
replaced by a new world order" to find solutions to the
current day challenges.
PTI
