No country immune to global financial turmoil: India

WASHINGTON: Observing that in a globalised framework no country can be immune to what is happening in the world financial markets, India on Saturday said recessionary trend is "slowly becoming a reality".

"....We are not too sure about the full magnitude of the problem (the global financial crisis). Despite some incipient signs of cooling, inflationary pressures arising out of elevated food and fuel prices has not fully subsided."

"The recessionary trend is slowly becoming a reality with the twin threats of the financial markets crisis and consumer anxiety," said a statement by India's Finance Minister P Chidambaram to the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) meeting here.

The statement was tabled by the country's central bank governor D Subbarao. Chidambaram had cancelled his plans to attend the meet at the last minute.

"We are meeting in Washington at a time when the global economy is under unprecedented strain. The financial sector turmoil that originated in the sub-prime mortgage sector in the US is now unfolding itself into a full-blown crisis with multidimensional ramifications across many developed economies and spillovers to the rest of the world," India said.

Pointing out that the present crisis gives a chance to look back and analyse what went wrong, the statement said growth in emerging economies would be affected due to the crisis. "...Crises do give us an opportunity to quickly take stock of what went wrong and to act... emerging market economies will also be affected as their growth slows to 6.9 percent in 2008 and further to 6.1 per cent in 2009."