PM arrives to attend G8-O5 meet; India for Fund on climate change

Berlin, June 6 (UNI) As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived here today for the G8 summit, India circulated a position paper on climate change, suggesting the setting up of a Venture Capital Fund for evolving new technologies for reducing emission of greenhouse gases and providing these to developing countries at concessional cost and to developed countries at commercial rate.

The Fund may be set up by a multilateral financial institution which should hold the intellectual property rights (IPRs) of new technologies developed, the position paper said.

This was necessary as many needed technologies based on available resources in developing countries did not yet exist, or were too expensive.

Collaborative research and development between institutions in developing and industrialised nations was necessary to address this gap, it said.

Such R and D could be carried out with the assistance of the proposed Fund, India said.

While leaving for Berlin, Dr Singh had said he would present India's viewpoint on climate protection, energy efficiency and conclusion of the Doha round of talks.

Tomorrow, Dr Singh would have bilateral meetings here with Chinese President Hu Jintao and the Presidents of Nigeria and Mexico. Also, the five outreach nations -- China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, besides India -- would hold a meeting among themselves tomorrow, a day ahead of the summit with the G8 at Heiligendamm, a two-hour drive from here.

On the sidelines of the G8-O5 summit, Dr Singh will have ''pull-aside'' meetings with US President George Bush and some other leaders of industrialised nations.

The Indo-US nuclear issue would figure at the Singh-Bush meeting, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon confirmed.

On the eve of Dr Singh's...Eds here pick up from line one, para five of DF 12 'PM-G8-ARRIVAL'.

UNI