India would urge for leveraging global imbalances to bridge the infrastructure gap between the rich and the poor nations. It would call for building upon the process of IMF reform on which good progress was made last month at the G-20 finance ministers' meeting with an agreement on shift in quota shares, including in favour of India, while protecting the voting share of the poorest.

The Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh who left for Seoul on Wednesday said that apart from cooperating with other member countries for pushing the development agenda, he would have bilateral discussions with the Mexican President, Felipe Calderon, Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, UK Prime Minister, David Cameron and the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. The bilaterals are likely to take place at the sidelines of the Summit on November 11.

He said : “Given the vast development challenges we face, it is in India's interest to have an open, stable and rule-based international economic environment, whether in the field of trade, investment flows, technology transfers or open markets. We have to be particularly wary of protectionist sentiments. There are also developmental imbalances within and between countries, and rebalancing of the world economy is a major challenge. The success of the Mutual Assessment Process is important in this regard. India will actively participate in this process to strike the right balance between ensuring its credibility as well as the national interests of countries”.

This is the second G-20 Summit in 2010. The last one was hosted in Toronto in Canada in June 2010. There are high expectations from the Seoul Summit for suggesting a roadmap for ensuring a sustained and balanced economic recovery on a long-term basis from the Great Recession of 2008. The theme of the Seoul Summit is - Shared Growth Beyond Crisis.The ambitious outcome of the Summit will be in the form of the Seoul Action Plan.

The Summit will also discuss the issues of regulatory reforms of the financial sector and consider the new Basel-III norms. “This is a key area of work, and we must guard against complacency in the pursuit of a strong financial regulatory framework and effective supervision,” the Prime Minister said.

The preparation of the Summit is in the process while the negotiations between the officials of financial institutions of different countries is also going on in Seoul. The major issue is the currency dispute amidst the allegation that certain members are deliberately keeping the value of their currency low and creating trade imbalance. The International Labour Organisation has stressed the need to create 21 million jobs every year to overcome the effect of global meltdown. The India is being seen here as an emerging economic power. The G-20 gains importance as its members comprises of major developed countries and leading emerging market economies representing around 90% of the global GDP, 85% of the world trade and two-thirds of the humanity.

The Prime Minister said that the world economy was on the path of recovery but we should keep our focus on how to optimize global outcomes in an increasingly interdependent world. As the Indian economy moves to a higher growth path, and opens to the world, our stake in a stable, inclusive and representative global economic and financial system will only grow