Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that India wants to enhance its influence in the world as one in every six persons is Indian and the world cannot ignore India's economy. Sitharaman stated that no country, whether US which is far away or China which is very close cannot ignore India. She stated that India has always backed multilateral institutions and did not at any time seek to undermine any multilateral institution. She said that expectations pinned on multilateral institutions are fissured away as no solutions are coming out of them.
On how nations like India and other big emerging markets step up and play a role that helps to take ownership of that process and drive the reform forward, Sitharaman said, 'Yes, absolutely possible. And on this, I just want to again start from where a thought of my Prime Minister came in and this is well thought through. He once said India's priority is not to impose its dominance. In the sense we have the biggest democracy, we have in the world, the largest population but to enhance its influence. Now why do we want to have our influence enhanced? It's only because the fact that today one in every six person in the world is an Indian and you just cannot ignore our economy and the way in which it is growing, that's the second.'
She added ‘And third, the skilled manpower which today is in India and also everywhere else running large corporations which are for running institutions which are in large countries, developed countries. But yet that particular point that Larry mentioned, that in today's world, the course which developed countries took, starting from producing textiles, cycles, bicycles and something else, and reaching development, is no longer available. It is going to be something else’.