G8 fails to take up membership issue

The eight most developed nations have decided to work with five leading developing countries, including India, for a joint response to major challenges facing the world economy, but a move to grant them full membership to the elite club did not fructify.

In a joint declaration issued at the conclusion of their two-day annual summit in this Baltic Sea resort, the leaders of the G-8 nations said they decided to launch a new form of specific cooperation with India, Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa to initiate dialogs on key world economic issues with the aim of reaching concrete results within two years.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who hosted the summit attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said it was important that for the first time a process for permanent contacts between the leading industrialized nations and the "threshold nations" has been established in Heiligendamm.

The G-8 nations acknowledged that neither they themselves nor the major emerging nations alone will be able to cope with the major challenges that have arisen in the world economy.

"Therefore, they agreed on the need to develop common solutions by launching a new form of specific cooperation with the emerging nations," Merkel told a news conference after the summit.

The new initiative -- "Heiligendamm Process" -- was launched after the G-8 leaders' discussions with Singh and the leaders of China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa at a working session.