London, April 1: Manmohan Singh, who today had a meeting lasting over an hour with Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, at 10, Downing Street, ahead of the G20 summit tomorrow was “looking forward very much to his meeting with US President Barack Obama”.

Shivshankar Menon, the Indian foreign secretary, said the Indian Prime Minister was “hoping to discuss (our) bilateral relationship, regional issues and global issues” with Obama.

“The Indo-US relationship has been transformed over the last several years and both sides are looking forward to taking it further along the same path,” Menon said.

On the talks between the Indian and British Prime Ministers, “most of the conversation was about the global economic crisis, financial crisis and what the G20 meeting could do about it. They went over the main issues that face the summit, how to deal with the immediate financial crisis but also the long-term issues of what is needed not just to restore health and confidence to the banking system but also to promote economic recovery.”

Menon said: “There was a discussion on how the summit might consider common principles of banking, tax havens, hedge funds, the regulatory aspect of what needs to be done on the financial side. There was also discussion on trade and how to get trade credits flowing again through the developing countries who are among the first sufferers when there is a contraction in global credit.”

Brown and Singh at 10 Downing Street on Wednesday. (AP)

Singh “spoke of the dangers of financial protectionism of various forms but he also spoke of the need to ensure that in finding solutions to these immediate problems you should not be writing off the open economy. In fact, you need to strengthen the mechanisms that an open economy needs to work.”

Also discussed was exchange of information between central banks.

“The PM also spoke at some length of what he feels is very important — some form of international agreement on the exchange of information in the banking system, a transparent exchange of information.”

Pakistan came up, too. “There was a brief discussion on terrorism in our region and Mr Gordon Brown said he appreciated the efforts that we had undertaken. He made his position clear — this was an issue that needs to be dealt with firmly and he repeated what he had said earlier when he came in December to Delhi that the origins of many of the attacks that are taking place is really in Pakistan.”

Menon acknowledged that membership of the UN Security Council and governance of the IMF “needs to be brought into line with contemporary realities”.

The Prime Minister is aware that voters back in India will want to know how the G20 summit improves their lot.

Asked whether India was projecting itself as a country which could help others or one that needed help itself, Menon said the Prime Minister’s view was as follows: “The Indian economy is still doing well compared with the others. The fundamentals are sound. It is growing by about 7 per cent this year, it will grow by may be a little less, little more next year. It depends on the international situation.”

He emphasised: “There is no question that saving rates are high,investment rates are high. There is no question that the external environment has deteriorated drastically and that has effects on exports, for instance — though remittances are actually up if you look at them recently.”

Menon explained: “What we are trying to do and this is what the stimulus packages that we have implemented already and the steps that we are taking to increase investment in infrastructure is really to compensate for the deterioration in the external environment. I would characterise the Indian economy as an economy that is capable of taking care of itself and is continuing to maintain a positive growth.”

According to Singh, India “is part of the solution to the problem rather than the problem itself. We don’t intend to approach the IMF, we don’t feel we need it. We do feel it needs to augment its resources to help the other developing countries who have been very hard hit by the crisis and this is the point. This is a global crisis and it requires global solutions.”

The Prime Minister continued his discussions tonight with other leaders at a reception hosted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace and later at dinner given by Brown at 10, Downing Street.