India urges countries to oppose protectionism

India has urged countries to oppose protectionist tendencies and work towards developing a better system of surveillance and regulation in order to face the current global economic crisis.

India has urged countries to oppose protectionist tendencies and work towards developing a better system of surveillance and regulation in order to face the current global economic crisis.

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Addressing the UN Conference on World Financial and Economic Crisis, Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur said: “...it is particularly necessary that we should not permit protectionist tendencies, not just protectionism of trade in goods, but also protectionism in free flow of persons, protectionism in financial services as well as imposition of non-tariff barriers, to succeed in our response measures.”

She also cautioned the world body that the measures to address the global crisis should not create other problems in the future.

“We need to address regulatory and systemic flaws. There should be better and transparent regulatory mechanism for capital markets, including the non-banking sector, redefine capital requirements to avoid pro-cyclicality, and avoid build-up of excessive leverage,” Kaur said in her address at the UN General Assembly.

Arguing that there should be a better system of surveillance and regulation, she said surveillance should be even-handed with greater focus on the systemically important institutions.