So far preliminary discussions have been held on this new membership and China has made a strong bid with the active support of France. India is being supported by Japan. Though the final decision will be taken only at the summit in 2011, the coming meeting at Toronto also will be open to the other G-8 countries in giving their respective views on the admission of a new member.

The theme of the Toronto summit of G-20 is “Recovery and New Beginnings” referring to an economic stimulus from the impact of the ongoing world recession. The goals of the Toronto summit would be to work on the ideas brought up during the Washington, London and Pittsburgh summits, improving the international financial sector and keeping open markets. India is preparing itself to intervene effectively at the deliberations in both G-8 and G-20 since following Pittsburgh summit in September 2009, India has effectively managed its economy on the lines of the Pittsburgh declaration and in 2010-11 fiscal year, India is projecting a growth rate of 8.5 per cent which will be next only to China's.

India will make special mention of the need for vigilance by the European Union and the international financial institutions on the Greece crisis since it has the potential to have a contagion effect unless tackled with full force. Greece crisis, according to the Indian Government officials, is an indication of the destabilising impact which the western economies have been generating on the global economy and the developing and the poor countries are becoming the victims of this phenomenon for which they are not responsible.

As the Indian Finance Minister sees it, the Greece crisis at this stage does not pose any threat to India as India's financial sector has very little exposure to Greece and its neighbours Portugal, Spain and Italy but he has cautioned that if the EU fails to control the situation even with this huge bailout package, there is sure to be some impact on India's exports and foreign direct investment. The economy is now globalised and any major financial crisis in any part of the world has its ripple effect on other parts.

The G-20 Toronto meeting will discuss issues like financial sector reforms, trade protection and fiscal consolidation. The issue of the global currency might also come up. India favours a stronger Chinese yuan along with Brazil. The US President Barrack Obama has already mentioned this demand to the Chinese leaders. According to the Indian Government sources, exports from China to India have grown faster than Indian shipments to its northern neighbour and that obviously is a reflection of the differences in the exchange rate management. According to the RBI Governor D Subba Rao, if China revalues yuan, it will have a positive impact on India's external sector. His view is that if some countries manage the exchange rate and keep them artificially low, the burden of adjustment falls on some countries that do not manage their exchange rate so actively.

But at the same time, India will keep the interests of the BRIC - Brazil, Russia, India and China in mind and the strategy will be to expand further the gains which the BRIC countries were able to extract at the Pittsburgh summit. India is of the view that as a follow up of the global financial crisis, there has been a perceptible change in the economies of the emerging developing countries as also the western nations. While in the west, even after the recession is over, the growth rate is sluggish, in the emerging economies, the growth rate will accelerate and that will add to the total economic weight of the developing countries. This emerging global economy pattern will determine the future trade and investment relations as also the role of the different countries in the international financial institutions.

As regards G-8 summit agenda, Greece crisis will dominate the discussions and the permanent member countries Canada, European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States will review the situation in Eurozone after the bailout package granted to Greece and decide what further actions are needed to ensure that another global crisis like the US one does not engulf the world economy.

The G-8 summit was intended as a venue for resolving differences among its members but the general opinion is that the G-8 is not really the final forum to take decisions concerning the global economy, G-20 is more representative forum and the G-20 is better placed to take crucial decisions concerning the world economy. A tentative agenda for the 36th G-8 summit will include some issues which remain unresolved from previous summits. As chair of the G-8 summit when many of the commitments for African aid and development are due to be fulfilled, special attention will be focussed on Canada. (IPA Service)