Global Scene

India's poor left behind by blistering growth -Minister

India's scorching growth is failing to filter down to its hundreds of millions of poor people, a ruling Congress party minister has warned, stoking fears of social conflict. India's economy grew by 9.4 percent last year and the government is targeting nearly nine percent expansion or higher this year for the country of 1.1 billion people.

"Here we are kissing 10 percent growth and instead of living standards rising, they are falling (for many)," minister for local governments Mani Shankar Aiyar told the India Economic Summit in New Delhi that winds up on Tuesday.

"India is becoming prosperous but not Indians," Aiyar said.

The boom is "disproportionately affecting a small percentage of the population," Aiyar said, noting despite strong growth, India sank in the Human Development Index to 128th place from 126 last year.

While summit speakers have been upbeat about business prospects, they have also reminded delegates that India has no room for complacency.

A quarter of Indians exist below the poverty line with most living off small subsistence farms, delegates were told at the summit, whose theme is how to reshape India in an "inclusive and sustainable way.

A report prepared by the summit, part of the World Economic Forum in Davos, listed a litany of challenges.

India's crumbling infrastructure is stretched to its limits, it said.

The country has 18 percent of the world's population but only four percent of the planet's water and demand for water will exceed supply by 2050.

"Eighty percent of Indians don't have access to proper sanitation, most don't have access to power," said Anand Mahindra, vice chairman of giant Indian truckmaker Mahindra Mahindra.

India accounts for one-third of the world's illiterates with just 64 percent of adults able to read.

Aiyar blamed a lazy, bumbling and sometimes corrupt bureaucracy for many social and infrastructure problems, citing estimates that only 15 percent of each rupee allocated to social spending reaches the needy.

Distribution of resources needed to be done by local councils, or panchyats, that would have better accountability, he said.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram admitted on the weekend to the same meeting that India would fail to meet some UN Millennium Development Goals set for 2015 covering hunger, literacy and poverty reduction.

EU, IMF see darker outlook for eurozone growth in 2008

Growth in the 13 nations sharing the euro is expected to be weaker than expected only several months ago, according to the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund on Monday.

The head of the IMF's European department, Michael Deppler, painted a darker outlook for the eurozone in a presentation to the bloc's finance ministers on Monday in Brussels, EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said.

"According to him, growth in the euro area could be around 2.0 percent, even below 2.0 percent, slightly below 2.0 percent next year," Almunia told journalists after the meeting.

In October, the IMF had forecast that the eurozone economy would expand by 2.1 percent next year.

Almunia also said that had the European Commission known what it knows now when it estimated in November that the eurozone economy would grow 2.2 percent then "our forecasts would have a lower figure for growth."

BRUSSELS, AFP

Saudi cautious before OPEC meet, Libya signals no output hike

Oil kingpin Saudi Arabia said Monday it was "very premature" to indicate whether OPEC would decide to boost supplies at a crucial output meeting here this week.

But Libya, which like Saudi is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, signalled that no hike would occur as the market was "very well supplied" and that demand for crude was falling amid very high energy prices.

OPEC ministers were arriving in the United Arab Emirates capital ahead of Wednesday's key meeting amid uncertainty over the outcome.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi said OPEC needed to study data before making its decision.

OPEC, which pumps about 40 percent of the world's oil, is concerned that raising output could oversupply the market, further dampening prices which slumped below 88 dollars a barrel on Monday.

"Right now it will be very premature to tell you what the assessment is" of the oil data, Nuaimi told reporters on arrival in Abu Dhabi.

"We have not looked at the data yet. Tomorrow and the day after we will have an opportunity to look at all the data. We will assess and decide," he added.

According to analysts, maintaining current output quotas could send oil prices to recent record highs above 99 dollars a barrel and even beyond the psychological century mark for the first time, crimping global economic growth.

Libya's oil chief Shukri Ghanem said he did not believe OPEC would decide to increase oil production from its current daily level of 27.25 million barrels of oil.

Asked whether he thought OPEC would hike output, Ghanem told reporters: "I don't think so."

He added: "I don't think that the market needs more oil ... If demand is going down, why should we increase?"

OPEC president and UAE Energy Minister Mohammad bin Dhaen al-Hamli meanwhile said the cartel's output decision would be based solely on supply and demand factors.

Analysts believe Wednesday's output decision hangs on the preference of Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer and exporter, which is the only OPEC member with spare crude capacity.

"The price collapse of last week could be seen as a lesser incentive for Saudi Arabia to sponsor a new increase," said Olivier Jakob, analyst with Petromatrix.

"However, we need to keep in mind that they surprised everybody by sponsoring a 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) increase at the previous meeting on September 11."

Nuaimi last week insisted that the world oil market was well supplied and that high prices did not properly reflect the supply-demand situation.

Bill Farren, analyst at Meddley Global Advisers, said he believed OPEC would decide against hiking production.

"The Saudis are already producing more than they're supposed to," with recent figures showing output of 9.1 million bpd against an official quota of 8.94 million bpd, Farren said Monday.

NEW YORK, (AFP)