By Arvind Padmanabhan

Toronto, Jun 28 (IANS): The G20 leaders Sunday pledged to fight protectionism and promote free flow of trade, investment and professionals, respecting the demand by emerging economies like India, articulated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

In a joint declaration issued after the two-day summit, the leaders of the rich and emerging economies said their refrain to raise barriers will hold at least till 2013, when they will review their respective positions.

"While the global economic crisis led to the sharpest decline of trade in more than 70 years, G20 countries chose to keep markets open to the opportunities that trade and investment offer," said the declaration. "It was the right choice".

Hours earlier, Manmohan Singh had underscored the need for developing countries to increase investment demand by focusing on infrastructure that can sustain growth in the short term by offsetting the contraction on account of lower exports.

"But growth in developing countries would be greatly helped if threats of new protectionist measures in industrialised countries are firmly resisted and existing barriers to trade, especially those affecting developing countries, are reduced," he said.

In this context, he had told the opening plenary Sunday it was imperative to conclude the Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organisaion (WTO), which again was endorsed in the joint declaration.

The declaration said G20 members will minimise negative impacts of their domestic policies on trade and investment, while asking multilateral financial institutions to monitor the situation within their respective mandates.

"Open markets play a pivotal role in supporting growth and job creation, and in achieving our goals under the G20 framework for strong, sustainable and balanced growth."

Besides India, the G20 members are the US, Canada, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and EU.