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Tomorrow's decision today at G8

K. Venugopal

Berlin: Was it a gaffe or was it great foresight? Leaders of the G8 and the five emerging economies are to meet at the German resort of Heiligendamm on Friday, but the official G8 summit declaration released on Thursday talked about what they had purportedly agreed upon.

"At the Heiligendamm summit, we discussed with the leaders of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa the major challenges that have arisen in the world economy... " went on the declaration even though the leaders of the five emerging economies were at the time in Berlin talking to each other and among themselves, and not with the G8.

The reference to the five emerging economies was tucked away at the end of the document that listed the points agreed upon by the leaders of the G8 at their conclave on Thursday.

"Building on our discussions, we decided to a new form of topic-driven dialogue in a structured manner ... We agreed to address four issues: promoting and protecting innovation, enhancing freedom of investment through an open investment environment, defining common responsibilities for development with special regard to Africa, and sharing knowledge for improving energy efficiency and technology cooperation with the aim to contribute to reducing CO2 emissions.

Platform for dialogue

The declaration added that "we ask the OECD to provide a platform for this new dialogue process ... [that] will begin in the second half of 2007."

Indian officials confirmed that there had been no discussions today with the G8.

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