G8-G5 agree on global economic crisis, institutional reforms

October 7th, 2009 ISTANBUL - The annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund was formally concluded Wednesday in Istanbul with an appeal to nations to pursue reforms while dealing with the global economic crisis. In remarks wrapping up the conference attended by finance ministers, central bank governors and other top officials from 186 countries, plenary session chairman Nguyen Van Giau said further international cooperation was foreseen to master the problems.

September 24th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The current financial crisis has shaken the global economic order, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said here Thursday. In a way, the current crisis has questioned the very assumptions underlying the global economic order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War, Tharoor said at an RIS-Japan Economic Foundation Symposium.

September 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - India will make a pitch for reforms of world financial institutions and concrete steps to mitigate the global crisis when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh participates in the G20 summit of major and emerging economies in Pittsburgh Friday. India will focus on the need for reforms of global financial institutions to reflect ground economic realities as it exist today, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao told reporters here Saturday in a curtain-raiser briefing ahead of Manmohan Singh's two-day visit to Pittsburgh starting Thursday.

September 17th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The world economy is beginning to turn around after its first recession in decades, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Thursday. IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said poor countries have done a better job than expected of weathering the global economic storm, but will still need massive aid to curb its worst effects.

September 11th, 2009 SYDNEY - Scientists have sounded the alarm bells over impending global catastrophe as existing governments and institutions are too powerless to head it off. The world faces a compounding series of crises - from energy, food shortages, to climate change, to new diseases and increasing anti-biotic resistance - all driven by human activity, which is beyond the capacity of existing institutions to cope with, warns a group of eminent environmental scientists and economists.

September 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The global economic crisis has encouraged a rash of government reforms that should make it easier to start, run and close businesses around the world, according to a World Bank report released Tuesday night. The annual "Doing Business" survey recorded more regulatory business reforms in more countries than any time since the report began in 2004.

September 5th, 2009 LONDON - The US has responded positively to a proposal to give India and other leading emerging economies a much greater say in the running of international financial architecture, a source privy to global ongoing discussions in London said. American Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner who attended the latter half of a meeting of the finance ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) in London Friday was briefed on the BRIC demand for a seven percent shift in International Monetary Fund (IMF) quotas that determine a country's voting powers.

July 27th, 2009 African economic growth seen halving to 2.8 pctJOHANNESBURG — A new report says Africa has been "gravely affected" by the global economic downturn and that its growth rate will halve this year due to collapsing commodity prices and a decline in donor funding. The 2009 African Economic Outlook finds that after a decade of above 5 percent economic growth, the continent can expect only 2.8 percent in 2009.

July 27th, 2009 China, US officials see global economic recoveryWASHINGTON — Top officials of the United States and China said Monday they saw hopeful signs that the global economy was beginning to move into a period of recovery. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that the joint efforts of the nations to deal with the financial crisis with large stimulus programs marked a turning point in the relationship of the two economic superpowers.

July 15th, 2009 Russia sets up $7.5B fund to help neighborsMOSCOW — Russia set up Wednesday a $7.5 billion crisis fund to help former Soviet nations weather the global economic crisis — and, analysts say, to increase Moscow's clout in the region. The fund was created to aid Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, all members of a group called the Eurasian Economic Communit.

July 15th, 2009 Sharm el-SHEIKH - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday said the relevance of the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM has) never been greater than today and called for greater solidarity among members in tackling global challenges, including the financial crisis, energy security, climate change and the UN reforms. "History has shown that non-alignment is an idea that evolves but does not fade.

July 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Ahead of the G8 summit in Italy, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna Monday launched the website of the outreach partners, an important step that underlines increasing congruence among G5 countries which share common positions on key global issues.

June 19th, 2009 LONDON - The Chinese economy, hit very severely by the global economic crisis, could dip one more time if the government does not roll out structural reforms that would seek to curb 20 years of excessive dependence on exports, a leading Chinese economist has warned. Delivering a speech at the London School of Economics Thursday, Yu Yongding, director general of the Institute of World Economy and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also warned that two decades of investment-driven growth strategy had led to serious problems with over-capacity.

June 11th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Indian economy is expected to grow by 7.2 percent in the current fiscal, primarily driven by improvements in consumer sentiment, rural economy, and policy reforms, said an industry survey released here Thursday. According to the survey, conducted by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), about 42 percent of the respondents believe policy reforms would cast massive impact on the GDP (gross domestic product) growth.

January 6th, 2009 AHMEDABAD - The Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit-2009, begining Jan 12, will focus on the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, and generate more employment, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said here Tuesday. 'The global economic crisis is an opportunity for Gujarat to plan and march ahead.