Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday that India needs to ramp up its bilateral relations for trade and investment as the world is witnessing a churn, and bilateralism seems to be the new catalyst tool.

She said India would need to play a crucial role in the “global reset” as the new world order won’t be determined by the developed nations.

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Speaking at a media event, Sitharaman said these are very interesting yet challenging times and the government is making all efforts to make India move up the ladder and be an engine of global growth.

“Bilateralism is now taking the top of the agenda… It is for us to ramp up our bilateral relations with many countries, not just for trade, not just for investment, but also for strategic relations. So, multilateralism, sort of, out, I’m still saying with a qualifying word ‘sort of out’, but bilateralism is very much your only catalytic tool that you can use,” she said.

“So, where you have to address issues which affect more than your own country. You have no more forums left which can effectively deliver… multilateral institutions and their contributions probably are fading away, at least in the near future, till an attempt is made to revive them with that kind of energy… It’s not going to happen in the next few years,” she said.

“Developed countries have the money to invest, but that is not going to be sufficient for them either. Trade and technology will play a crucial role in the new world order and India will need to participate,” the Finance Minister said.

She highlighted that India has to make a meaningful contribution to the global reset as much as make continuous efforts towards moving up the ladder in terms of per capita income and becoming a business destination furthering global growth.

There is no Most Favoured Nation (MFN) concept, she said, adding, every country wants to be treated special, and every country wants to be sure that special treatment that they get is not by default. “So if the WTO is getting weakened or multilateral institutions are not being effective… bilateral arrangements are going to be the order of the day in terms of trade,” she added.

Talking about reforms, the finance minister said it is something that the government will continue to do in various areas including debt management and maintaining fiscal prudence.