RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das stresses the need for cooperation among South Asian nations to deal with the challenges of climate change
Jan 06, 2023Reserve Bank of India's Governor Shaktikant Das has emphasized the cooperation among South-Asian countries to build green economies in the region to effectively deal with challenges posed by climate change. He said that rupee settlement of cross-border trade and Central Bank Digital Currency could also be areas of greater cooperation in the future.
Addressing at IMF Conference in New Delhi today, Mr. Das said that the South-Asian region was vulnerable to climate change due to its large population and degradation of natural resources. He said that cooperation was required among south-Asian countries to move in the direction of green transition at a faster pace with reasonable cost. He also stressed strengthening cooperation in the energy security sector as south-Asian countries have a high reliance on fossil fuels.
Listing out the various challenges faced by the region, Mr. Das said that these challenges had been accentuated by the Covid pandemic, spillovers of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, inflation, and financial market tightening across the globe. He highlighted various measures to deal with these challenges saying that efforts need to be made to tame inflation, and external debt vulnerabilities and raise productivity. He said that as per the World Economic Outlook of the IMF, India, Bangladesh, and Maldives would be among the fastest-growing economies in the world in 2022 and 2023. He added that according to the Asian Development Bank’s December 2022 outlook, the South Asian region’s GDP is projected to grow at 6.5 percent in 2022 and 6.3 percent in 2023. He said that the World Bank had estimated that regional cooperation could be a win-win situation for all countries of the region.
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