Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

Joint Statement by the German G-8 Presidency and the Heads of State and/or Government of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa on the occasion of the G-8 Summit

Today's purposeful discussions between the G8 and Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa mark an important step towards an equal and enduring partnership for building the framework conditions of a globalized and competitive world economy. In a globalizing world, we have to look beyond national and regional boundaries and work together.

Towards this endeavour, we commit to cooperate in the following fields:

- Promoting Cross Border Investment to our Mutual Benefit:

We recognize that cross-border direct investment is a major factor shaping the world's economy. Such inflows can make a major positive contribution to economic growth and sustainable development. We share a common interest in promoting investment and to safeguard and further develop a sound global investment environment. To this end, we shall work together to promote more favourable conditions in our countries for investment, both domestic and foreign, with the aim of fostering economic growth and sustainable development. This may also include the encouragement of responsible business conduct.

- Promoting Research and Innovation:

Strategies to encourage and support research and innovation are key elements for future sustainable development of our economies. In this context, we underline the importance of integrating the promotion and protection of innovation in our national policies and legislation. We encourage a positive exchange of views on international experiences related to the crucial role and economic value of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and implementation of agreed international IPR protection standards. In this exchange we also need to consider the protection of IPRs in conjunction with common good of human kind for the purposes of protecting the environment and supporting public health. In this regard, we recall the Doha Declaration on the TRIPs Agreement and public health. We affirm our commitment for further cooperation in capacity building, human resource development and public awareness programmes in the field of intellectual property.

- Fighting Climate Change:

We face serious challenges in tackling climate change and achieving sustainable development globally. We reaffirm our commitment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and to its objective through both mitigation and adaptation in accordance with our common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. On this basis and taking into account the scientific knowledge as represented in the recent IPCC reports, we remain committed to contribute our fair share to tackle climate change in order to stabilize green house gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. To this end we need a flexible, fair and effective global framework and concerted international action. We underline the crucial role of economic incentives, in particular by carbon markets, for the necessary investments in climate friendly technologies at large scale. The adaptation to climate change will be a major challenge for all countries, in particular for developing countries , and means for adaptation need to be included in a future agreement along with enhanced technology cooperation and financing. We call on all parties to actively and constructively participate in the negotiations on a comprehensive agreement at the UNFCCC Conference in Indonesia in December 2007.

- Energy:

We recognise the need for closer, more practical and result-oriented regional and international cooperation in the energy sector, especially in ensuring secure and affordable supplies of energy as well as in improving energy efficiency and the access to advanced and affordable energy technologies. We confirm our commitment to promote energy efficiency, through cost-effective solutions, to advance the effective

use of fossil fuels, such as the clean coal technology, and to increase the use of cleaner and renewable energy sources, such as biofuels and biomass, as an important step towards secure, stable and competitive energy supplies for achieving sustainable development.

- Development, particularly in Africa:

We reiterate our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the eradication of poverty and sustainable global development. In view of our responsibility regarding the challenges of development we shall strengthen cooperation and coordination between us to achieve these goals.

We commit to embark on a high-level dialogue on specific challenges as proposed by the G8 (Heiligendamm Process) as a follow up to continue our discussion in a more structured manner for a period of two years until the G8 Summit in 2009 where we will review the progress made on the following issues: Promoting cross border investment to our mutual benefit, Promoting Research and Innovation, Development, particularly Africa, and Sharing Knowledge for improving Energy Efficiency.