India to push for expansion of WB capital

India will push for the expansion of the capital of the World Bank, similar to that of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a top Indian official said on Thursday, ahead of the key G-20 Summit tomorrow to review the progress made to check the global economic crisis.

"From our point of view, we would also like to have the capital of the World Bank to be expanded and of course there is the whole question of climate change which is very much on the agenda in the run up to Copenhagen," said Meera Shankar, the Indian Ambassador to the United States.

Shankar told reporters on the eve of the start of the two-day G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh that one of the issues that is being discussed is "the issue of financing for climate change for developing countries and I think there is the view that this should be done through the existing multilateral financial institutions".

"While that is something which can be considered, we feel that there should be net additionality of funding and should not detract from the existing orientation and existing missions of these institutions," she said.

Shankar said this was one of the suggestions made by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the first G-20 meeting that many poor developing countries will be very adversely effected by the economic crisis and argued that there is a need to provide additional capital to the multilateral institutions so that they are in a position to respond quickly to any crisis requirements from these countries.