India-U.S.A. Economic & Financial Partnership Dialogue held

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her American counterpart, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, met on Thursday, October 14, 2021 for the eight Ministerial meeting of the U.S.-India Economic and Financial partnership. Also in attendance were Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das (attended virtually). 

The Ministerial held a session dedicated to climate finance for the first time, as per a joint statement.

Key Highlights

• In the run up to the UN Climate Change Conference ( “COP26”) in Glasgow at the end of the month, India has been pushing for rich countries to meet their Paris Accord climate finance commitment of $100 billion per year.
• The two sides reaffirmed the collective developed country goal to mobilise $100 billion annually for developing countries from public and private sources, in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation,” the statement said.

• Holding such a session, the statement said, reflected the “critical” role climate finance has to play in achieving global climate goals and the two sides’ commitments to drive “urgent progress” in combating climate change.
• In line with themes from the week’s discussions so far around the World Bank IMF annual meetings, topics of discussion also included the economic recovery from the pandemic, anti-money laundering and financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), bilateral lending and debt sustainability , as well as international taxation.
• India and the U.S. also reiterated their support for “debt sustainability and transparency in bilateral lending,” presumably a reference to China’s lending practices under its Belt and Road Initiative which has led borrowing countries to unsustainable debt positions.

SOURCE: The Hindu

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