India ready to support IMF to fight global economic crisis: RBI Governor Subbarao

Washington, Sep 23 (ANI): Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said here on Thursday that India is ready to extend support to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to overcome the global economic crisis.

In his statement during the meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations that met at Washington, Subbarao said that all the nations of the group are ready help IMF.

"BRICS countries are prepared to support the IMF in augmenting its resources, of course subject to their individual country circumstances," he said.

The BRICS countries have unanimously considered providing money to the International Monetary Fund or other global financial bodies to increase their firepower for fighting financial crisis.

"It is natural that when rich countries get into problems, the demand for IMF support, in terms of quantum of support, is bound to be higher, than when poorer countries or emerging economy get into problems. So, it is possible that IMF resources are starched and they might need additional support," said Subbarao.

The RBI Governor's statement emphasised a growing concern of emerging economies about the escalating economic crisis in the developed world.

Subbarao said that India demands IMF to be evenhanded and transparent in its support to all the countries.

He further said that financial support would depend on financial conditions of the individual countries.

"We represent a group of countries where there is (an) enormous amount of demand for resources at home for poverty reduction, so there is going to be a big, big tension between giving money to a multilateral institution for the purpose of restoring global stability and meeting our own aspirations at home," said Subbarao.

The leaders on Thursday also called the G20 nations to act swiftly and decisively to ease the euro zone debt crisis, the same way they fought the global financial crisis in 2008.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who was also present on the occasion, said since the contribution of the BRICS countries is significantly increasing, their currencies should be appreciated. (ANI)