ST. PETERSBURG, June 13 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's foreign minister said Tuesday that all countries should gain from globalization rather than just the most industrialized.
Sergei Lavrov said that hundreds of millions of people gained nothing from globalization, which many people all over the world see as a process that only increases inequality between nations rather than one the narrows the gap between the industrialized and developing worlds.
But Lavrov told a discussion as part of an economic forum in St. Petersburg - Challenges of Globalization. Competitive Advantages of Developing Countries - that the process should do more to eliminate inequality, poverty and social vulnerability.
"It is important to give globalization a social dimension," he said, calling on the participants of the discussion to make it the issue of the agenda.
On June 6, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Russia would write off $700 million worth of debt owed by Heavily Indebted Poor Countries. "This year, Russia will join the G8's HIPC initiative, writing off $700 mln debts," he said.
