YEKATERINBURG, Russia: Rubbishing claims by western leaders that the current food crisis was caused by the growing consumption in India and China, BRIC Foreign Ministers here on May 16 sought a "just" global economy keeping in view interests of all nations.
"There are multiple reasons for the current food crisis, primarily due to recent cyclones in Bangladesh and Myanmar, which destroyed the entire rice crops in these countries, also exporters of rice. Now they have to import rice instead of exporting it," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said during the deliberations on the issue at the ministerial meet of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) here.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi reminded that the share of China's food imports in the global food trade was only two per cent and his country was also the donor of food to needy nations. Blasting the claims that production of bio-fuel by his country was among the reasons for the food crisis, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim pointed out: "Brazil has been producing bio-fuel for more than 30 years, but there was no food crisis in the world."
He blamed the agriculture subsidies to their farmers by the developed nations for the miserable state of agriculture in the developing nations. The Foreign Ministers of the four countries, including Russia's Sergei Lavrov, called for a "just" global economy keeping in view interests of all nations as they rubbished claims that the food crisis was caused by the growing consumption in India and China.
US President George W Bush earlier this month joined his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in blaming the rising prosperity of India's huge middle class for the spiraling global food prices. Prosperity in countries like India is "good" but it triggers increased demand for "better nutrition" which in turn leads to higher food prices, Bush had said.
Unique group Describing Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) as a 'unique group' of fastest emerging markets, New Delhi sought closer quadrilateral cooperation to ensure energy security and development of clean and efficient technologies. Addressing the first ever stand-alone ministerial meeting of BRIC here, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee noted that Russia is one of the largest producers of hydro-carbons and Brazil of bio fuel while India and China are major importers of energy resources for their growing economies.
"Our energy companies could closely cooperate among themselves to play a role in the development of clean and efficient technologies and alternative sources of renewable energy," Mukherjee said. He said that BRIC is a 'unique group' of fastest emerging markets of the world where over 40 per cent of the humanity lives on 30 per cent landmass of the planet.
The BRIC leaders discussed a whole range of global issues including strategic security, threat of militarization of space, trans-border crimes and international terrorism as well as economic slowdown in the wake of US sub-prime crisis and new challenges of food crisis and climate change.
"The current trends in the global economy and slowdown are matters of new concerns," Mukherjee said. He, however, pointed out that due to the vigorous growth of BRIC economies a worse crisis could be averted and economic and financial multipolarity could be a reality in the present day world. "The market losses in the developed world are put around 4.5 per cent, but the global growth in 2007-2008 came down from 9 per cent to 8.6 per cent, so the actual loss was less than one per cent because of our economies. "It is now clear that the world is already multipolar, at least in the finances and economies," Mukherjee said.
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