'This relatively strong performance is partly due to the strong stimulus measures introduced in the second half of 2008-09, which have been continued in the current financial year,' he said.

The prime minister, at whose instance India decided to pump in $10 billion into the International Monetary Fund (IMF), also made a strong pitch for doubling the capital base of the World Bank as it was necessary in the light of $100 billion it proposed to lend over the next three years.

'If the capital base of the World Bank is not expanded, it will have to compress lending at the end of the three-year period to less than the pre-crisis level,' he said.

'This is surely not acceptable.'

The prime minister arrived here Thursday for the third Summit of G20, after the previous ones in London in April and in Washington in November last year.

Besides India and the US, the Group of 20 comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, Britain and the EU.

This forum has now virtually eclipsed the G8 - the once elite club of rich nations - as the forum that will shape future global economic policy to reflect the growing economic clout of emerging economies like India, China and Brazil.