Sitharaman calls for collective action for shared problems of IMF financial committee's member nations

New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday underlined the need for collective action on shared problems and noted the importance of IMF’s bilateral surveillance and capacity development in providing tailored advice to members.

Sitharaman, who attended the Plenary Meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) in Marrakech, Morocco to discuss the priorities identified in IMF MD’s Global Policy Agenda, said this during her intervention.

She noted that the 2023 has been a year of continued uncertainties and expressed concern about the weak medium term growth and policy trade-offs confronting policymakers worldwide.

Sitharaman reiterated the importance of IMF quota reforms to ensure an adequately resourced IMF at the centre of Global Financial Safety Net, bolstering IMF’s lending capacity, and support to members through IMF’s lending toolkit to prevent debt crises.

She also highlighted the need for a supportive IPR regime for technology transfer of climate change innovations to developing countries and welcomed the emphasis on the need for global cooperation on the same in MD IMF’s Global Policy Agenda.

The Finance Minister supported IMF’s focus on digitalisation, and highlighted that during the G20 presidency, India has worked towards ensuring that lessons from the digital public infrastructure revolution are shared as a global public good.