The Finance Minister is in Washington to attend the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group.
Washington: Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman has said that no country, whether the United States, which is far away, or China, which is very close, can ignore India. While participating in a panel discussion on the 'Bretton Woods Institutions at 80: Priorities for the Next Decade', organized by the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC, Sitharaman said India wants to enhance its influence in the world as one in every six persons is Indian and that the world cannot ignore India's economy.
"I want to draw your attention to India and its role is leading on technology, servicing through technology, leveraging technology and that is where when you look at Indians everywhere you are saying that they are the ones before sitting and readily saying yes we will give you the systems which can run complex corporate whether it is a refining system, oil refining system, whether it is multilateral banking system or anything else," the minister said.
"So, you really can't ignore the geopolitical neighborhood in which we live. No country, the US which is very far away from the US, or China which is very close to us, cannot ignore us," Sitharaman, who is in the US for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, added.
Further, she stressed that multilateral institutions should strengthen themselves for the global good, and added that shaping the future is an ambitious goal and called for the involvement of Bretton Woods institutions in it. These institutions - the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund - were set up at a meeting of 43 countries in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in July 1944. They aimed to help rebuild the shattered postwar economy and promote international economic cooperation.
