President-elect Barack Obama may agree to a proposal of global oversight of the financial system as he has a larger world-view than US President George Bush, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said today.
"Given by what I have read about President-elect Obama, I see no reason why he should be averse to the idea. I think he has a larger view of the world than President Bush. Therefore, I think he should agree to this global oversight," Chidambaram said at India Economic Summit, organised by the World Economic Forum and CII.
The Finance Minister said it is not clear to him whether the Obama administration is fully on board with what the outgoing administration has put on table at the G-20.
"It would have been reassuring if the incoming administration quickly stated that it is on board and is closely engaged with the outgoing administration," he said.
Chidambaram said his concern is that the G-20 in Washington could not agree on some kind of global oversight of the implementation of the action plan.
"I would have liked global oversight, not a global regulator; just a oversight mechanism to ensure that the national regulator and national authorities are implementing the action plan between now and March 31," he said.
Chidambaram also said the G-20 is a much better forum than the G-7 and is a better representative body of the world's GDP.
"I don't know whether the G-20 will replace the G-7 ... but I think the G-20 will become the most important economic forum like BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and Russia) to address the economic issues," he said.
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