Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has said India is weathering the severe global economic crisis better than the other economies of the world.
"The crisis in the global economy is very severe. We are weathering it better than most countries," Ahluwalia told Indian news agencies in an interview here on the sidelines of the ministerial level meeting of the G-20 countries to discuss the follow up of the London Summit early this month.
Referring to the IMF projections, which expecting that this year the global economy will contract by 1.3 per cent, he said India's economy is expected to increase by six per cent. "Next year they expect the global economy to improve. I am hoping that our economy will also be able to improve," he said.
Ahluwalia said emerging economies are growing faster than the advanced economies and within that it depends from region to region.
"Asia is doing well, Eastern Europe very badly and Latin America not so good. Obviously, it is not a comfortable situation," he observed.
As many of the decisions taken at the London Summit are on the process of being implemented, Ahluwalia said: "If you ask, whether these meetings have achieved a lot, the answer is they have."
But even with that achievement the outcome is going to be a difficult one, he argued. "If we had not done all this, the outcome would have been even worse. I am not sure that the outcome can be made better than what it is because it is a severe global problem and will take some time to recover."
He said that the the key aspect now was that the leaders of the G-20 countries were committed to ensuring that 2010 becomes a recovery year.
"Some of them feel that the green shoots of recovery are evident, everybody is saying that, look, do not be too over optimistic. But what they are saying is let's keep reviewing the situation and if something more needs to be done, we can take a view of it," he said.
All these issues would be discussed in the leaders of the G-20 meeting in the US in September. "So between now and September they would ensure that the implementation of what they have promised and they would review the position," Ahluwalia said.
