THE EMERGING ECONOMIES AND THE CHANGE OF GUARD AT THE IMF
Despite the loud rhetoric about how the centre of gravity of the global economy and, with it, political influence, have moved from the trans-Atlantic to Asia, there continues to be strong resistance to reflecting this shift in the institutions of global governance, writes Shyam Saran, India's former foreign secretary and chief climate change negotiator is currently Chairman of the Research and Information System for Developing Countries and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi.
Not only is Asia's share of the global GDP close to 50%, but it is also growing at an accelerated pace. The world's second and third largest economies today are from Asia (China and Japan). In the next couple of decades, India may well emerge as the third largest economy.
If India and China, together with other emerging economies represented in G-20 -for example, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and Indonesia- were to come together to endorse on a common candidate, I doubt whether the US and the Europeans would be able to offer much resistance. The health of the global economy, and in particular, of the world's financial markets, depends on cooperation from the emerging economies. The post of the IMF Director-General is going to France, once again, by default. And the emerging economies did not launch a credible and determined challenge.
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