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'West should learn from developing countries'
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 07 April 2009, 00:06 IST
New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called on leaders of industrialized nations to learn from developing countries on how to handle anti-globalization and protectionist sentiment among their disgruntled populace, reported the Economic Times.
Singh emphasized the need of leadership from the industrialized countries to protect and maintain the gains of openness in trade. "Leaders of developing countries have struggled to overcome doubts and fears of our public to persuade them of the merits of integrating with the global economy. I believe we have had substantial success and these hard-won gains will be destroyed if markets in industrialized countries are not kept open in these difficult times," Singh said. "As we deal with the immediate problems, we must also be careful not to sacrifice the gains of openness of trade, direct investment and immigration," he added.
Raising concerns of the new 'financial protectionism' Singh also said that the biggest hit developing countries have taken is in the collapse in trade, and unprecedented decline of almost nine percent in trade volume in 2009, as well as a massive decline of private capital flows at close to $700 billion in 2009, with little prospect of a significant revival in 2010. This, for him, has been encouraged by "financial protectionism built into the conditions for assisting banks in industrialized countries," clearly singling out strings attached to billion dollar bank bailouts in western countries.
He told rich-country counterparts that though there is justifiable outrage about bankers' mistakes and bonuses, they need to convince their voters and taxpayers that the banking system needs to be revitalized.
Singh sees more risks in doing too little rather than too much. "And we are not doing enough to ensure recovery in 2010. If we cannot agree to do more, we should at least send a clear message that we will watch developments carefully in 2009 and act speedily to do more if necessary," said.