YV Reddy to lead team to IMF-WB meet

India will be participating in the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), which will start on Wednesday in Washington.

Reserve Bank of India Governor YV Reddy will lead the delegation at the meeting. The team includes Chief Economic Adviser Ashok Lahiri and officials from the apex bank and the finance ministry.

The theme of the spring meet of the IMF and the World Bank is the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.

There are normally two major ministerial meetings of the two Bretton Woods institutions every year -- in April and September.

The finance minister is normally expected to lead the team. However, because of the Lok Sabha elections Jaswant Singh will not be able to attend the meeting this time.

The meeting of the two institutions was canceled last year.

The assembly gives an opportunity to the member countries to review their performances and chart out corrective actions for the world economy.

The Millennium Development Goals include a set of must-dos for countries to remove the most sharp indicators of poverty by 2015.

The goals include the provision of 100 per cent literacy, health standards, gender equality and empowerment of women, reduction in child morltality and bringing down disparities among nations and between the richest and poorest sections of the population of the member countries.

India's role has sharply swung in the IMF club from a debtor country at one point of time to that of a lender in recent years. It has offered support packages to both Brazil and Indonesia in 2003.