India and four other countries of the five-nation BRICS bloc today gave a big boost to IMF's USD 430 billion bailout fund for the debt-wracked 17 nation Eurozone pledging to contribute USD 75 billion with New Delhi's contribution being USD 10 billion.
The pledge was made at an informal meeting of BRICS Leaders presided by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ahead of the opening of the seventh G-20 Summit in this Mexican resort town. Besides India, the other nations in BRICS are China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa. According to Indian officials, China has agreed to contribute USD 43 billion while the contribution from Russia and Brazil will be USD 10 billion each. The South African contribution is USD 2 billion.
All the BRICS Leaders agreed that the Eurozone crisis threatened global financial and economic stability and that it was necessary to find cooperative solutions to resolve this crisis. The BRICS countries have been the new growth poles of the global economy.
The pledges for fresh contributions were made after the Leaders agreed to increase resources available with the International Monetary Fund. In this context, they agreed to enhance their own contributions to the IMF.
This is with the understanding that these resources will be called upon only after existing resources, including the New Arrangements to Borrow, are substantially utilised, an official statement said.
"This would promote adequate burden sharing amongst IMF creditors. These new contributions are being made in anticipation that all the reforms agreed upon in 2010 will be fully implemented in a timely manner, including a comprehensive reform of voting power and reform of quota shares," the statement said.
The Leaders discussed swap arrangements among national currencies as well as reserve pooling. They agreed to ask their Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors to work on this important issue, in a manner compatible with internal legal frameworks, and report back to the Leaders at the 2013 BRICS Summit.
The Leaders also emphasised the need for increasing the resource base of Multilateral Development Banks, so that increased resources could be provided for development, particularly for investments in infrastructure and in the social sectors in developing countries. They felt that the G-20 should pay importance to the development aspect in its agenda of work.
Prime Minister Singh in his address at the G-20 summit underlined the need to take steps to substantially expand the resource base of Multilateral Development Banks so that they have the firepower to help developing countries pursue their development goals.
The Leaders emphasised that given the current global situation and the need to bolster market confidence, it was important that the G-20 Summit issue a strong statement of intent in combating the international slowdown and the effects of the Eurozone crisis. The Leaders agreed that this process of informal consultations on the sidelines of multilateral events was valuable and contributed to closer coordination on issues of mutual interest to BRICS economies.
