Sitharaman Stresses Tech & Fund Transfer on Climate and Fighting Terror Funding
WASHINGTON, DC (IANS) – India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has reiterated the country’s call for transfer of low-cost technology and increased funding to developing countries to fight climate change at the International Monetary Fund plenary and, separately, reaffirmed India’s commitment to combating money laundering and terrorism funding.
On April 21 she emphasized both the “importance of the multilateral approach to combat climate change and the importance of transfer of climate finance and low-cost technologies from developed to developing countries.”
India has long argued that developing countries urgently need climate finance and transfer of low-cost technology to enable them to do their bit to combat global warming and developed countries must bear larger responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and must do more.
Sitharaman, who is participating in the Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group that includes the IMF, also pushed the multilateral body for greater equality among its 187 members. Some member countries have a larger say in its functioning and decisions-making based on their historically outsize status and a system of quotas that determine member countries’ relationship with the organization, including the value of their voting power.
The minister also noted at the plenary that at the projected growth rate of 8.2 per cent for 2022-23 by the IMF, India is still the fastest growing among developing economies. “India has continued to implement key structural reforms aimed at enhancing productivity and employment,” she said.
Separately, at a meeting of the finance ministers of the 37 member countries of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global watchdog on money laundering and terror funding, Sitharaman also extended India’s support for FATF’s “strategic priorities and reiterated India’s commitment to provide necessary resources & support to FATF in its endeavor as a global alliance against money laundering, terrorist financing & financing of proliferation of WMDs”.