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.
Dr. 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, Dr. Singh, joined by Mr. Zuma and Ms. 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.
Dr. 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 U.S., Europe and Japan.
Dr. Singh, Mr. Zuma and Ms. 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 spiralling 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 IBSA 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,” Dr. 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 IBSA were united in their efforts to address the deficit in global governance and pressed for enlargement of the U.N. Security Council to reflect the present day reality.
Ms. Rousseff said the three leaders were in agreement that “credible” steps were needed by Europe to stop the situation from spiralling out of control.
Demanding reform of international monetary and financial institutions and the U.N., 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.
