India’s priority is not to impose its dominance but to enhance its influence, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said, asserting that no country, whether the U.S. or China, can ignore New Delhi today.

Ms. Sitharaman made the remarks on Wednesday (October 23, 2024) during a panel discussion on “Bretton Woods at 80: Priorities for the Next Decade” organised by the Center for Global Development in Washington.

The Minister arrived in Washington on Tuesday to attend the annual meetings of the Bretton Woods Institutions — the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

“India’s priority is not to impose its dominance, in the sense we are the biggest democracy we have in the world, the largest population, but to enhance its influence,” she said.

Asserting that one in every six people in the world is an Indian, she said, “You just cannot ignore our economy and the way in which it is growing.”

Ms. Sitharaman underscored that the course developed countries took, from producing textiles, cycles, bikes, etc, and reaching development, is “no longer available”.

Questioning if India was in a position to define that path, she talked about the country’s leading role in technology and how Indians have the system to run complex corporate set-ups.

“You really can’t ignore it. Also, the geopolitical neighbourhood in which we live. No country, the US, which is very far away from us, or China, which is very close to us, can ignore us,” she said.

During the discussion, she said that India has always “stood in favour of multilateral institutions” and added that it has followed policies of “strategic and peaceful multilateralism”.

However, she highlighted that multilateral institutions are failing to produce viable solutions.

“We didn’t want any time undermining any multilateral institution. But progressively we see the hope and the expectations which were pinned on multilateral institutions are frittered away because we think no solutions are coming out of them,” she said.

“These institutions now are not offering an alternative pathway,” she added.

She said that multinational institutions, with a wealth of information and experience, manpower, and human resources, should strengthen institutions for the global good, which is “very necessary” to strengthen multilateralism.

“We are in favour of multilateralism,” Ms. Sitharaman added.

She stressed that the Bretton Woods institutions should work on this, rather than reacting to future developments.

“Unfortunately, in the last few decades, we see them reacting to future developments with the strength that they have. Therefore, information sharing is one thing,” she said.

“India, of course, has an international solar alliance and biofuel alliance, and we’re talking about disaster-resilient infrastructure. All these need money. All these need help for countries which are in smaller economies, island economies, which need them,” she said.

“So, through the digital public infrastructure that we have publicly funded and taken up to different countries, we are spreading that attention. These are areas in which India will contribute,” the Finance Minister said.

At a separate roundtable in Washington, Ms. Sitharaman said that India has created the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) to transform the infrastructure systems for resilience against natural disasters and adapt to climate change.

Chairing the Roundtable on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, she stressed the danger of the development gains being undercut by increasing climate-induced risks to infrastructure and the critical services it supports.

Ms. Sitharaman said that over the years, India has ensured resilient economic growth by not only investing in hard infrastructure but also in building institutional capacity through creating national and state-level Disaster Management Agencies.

Reassuring India’s commitment to sharing best practices during this resilience-building journey, the Union Finance Minister extended assistance to Global South towards shared challenges. She said that India looks forward to partnering with Africa and other developing countries to strengthen their resilience of infrastructure.

She added that under the G20 India Presidency, a Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group was created to increase commitment to disaster and climate-resilient infrastructure and to prioritise stronger national financial frameworks for disaster risk reduction.

The Minister also participated in the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable (GSDR).

In her intervention, she stressed improving timeliness, transparency and predictability, ensuring comparability of treatment among creditors and prioritising coordinated efforts to ensure low-cost, long-term financing and providing targeted technical assistance to strengthen fiscal capacity to build resilience in vulnerable countries.

Ms. Sitharaman called for a deeper dialogue to help countries meet debt obligations without compromising critical investments. She also cautioned against contingency financing instruments as they can result in deferred obligations, which can worsen future debt challenges.

She encouraged leveraging the GSDR’s informal platform to better understand the perspectives of all parties, address concerns and provide informed guidance to countries on the risks and benefits of these instruments.