India gaining importance in G20: Bernanke

Mumbai: India is gaining in importance among the G20 countries according to US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, who was in Mumbai on Wednesday along with US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner.

Bernanke and Geithner had two meetings in Mumbai - a session with business leaders and a subsequent meeting with the top management of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Addressing the media, Bernanke said, "India is clearly becoming a more and more important player on the world stage in G20 context, in terms of its role in the global economy. It is very useful for us to exchange ideas and build the basis for future collaboration."

The Fed chief said that in the RBI meeting, the central bankers discussed what is going on in the US economy and the Indian economy, and they also talked about monetary and regulatory policies. Bernanke's visit is the first by a sitting Fed chief.

Introducing Bernanke, the central bank's governor D Subbarao said that the US Fed chief stood for his aggressive use of quantitative easing (QE) and the use of innovations as he went along. "QE became 'credit easing' when private assets were bought to stabilize financial markets, followed by another unconventional move - 'operation twist'," said Subbarao. He added that the crisis has pushed central bank policy making into uncharted territory. "We will not know for many years whether the policy mix we have followed is right. Even so, in real time, all of us have to struggle with the challenge of managing the new trilemma - balancing fiscal sustainability, price stability and financial stability," Subbarao said.

Earlier in the day, US treasury secretary Geithner met industry captains in a meeting organized by CII. They discussed ways in which the US and India can deepen bilateral economic engagement. Other participants included CII president and Godrej Group chairman Adi Godrej, CII director general Chandrajit Banerjee, HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, ICICI Bank MD Chanda Kochhar, Kotak Mahindra Bank MD Uday Kotak, Jubilant Life Sciences MD Hari Bhartia, TVS Motor Company CMD Venu Srinivasan, IDFC MD Rajiv Lall and Tata Sons director ( finance) Ishaat Hussain.