New Delhi: India on July 17 said it has set up a Financial Intelligence Unit as part of the efforts to fulfil United Nations resolution and G-20 action plan to check the menace of terror funding.

The unit, to be headed by revenue secretary, will co-ordinate among various intelligence units of the country and international organisations to close in the gaps in information flow regarding financing of terrorism.

The issue was one of the major items discussed in the two-day G-20 deputies meeting, which was chaired by India's economic affairs secretary C M Vasudev.

Briefing reporters on the outcome of the meeting, Vasudev said the action plan on terrorist financing would be one of the main items in the agenda of the G-20 ministerial meeting to be held in New Delhi in November 2002.

Combating terror funding was difficult as it was carried out through "irregular" channels like narcotics, hawala and pseudonym bank accounts, additional secretary in charge of World Bank and IMF, Adarsh Kishore said.

The G-20 meeting also discussed the world's economic outlook and measures to remove barriers to globalisation, including trade and investment, Vasudev said.

He said the G-20 nations also took up the issue of restructuring of debt of crisis- hit nations, promotion of private investments and hiking of bilateral and multi- lateral assistance to developing nations.

The G-20 nations also discussed standards and codes for financial sector regulation and corporate governance, he added.

Elaborating on the action plan, Kishore said the G-20 would monitor the progress and ensure that the member nations frame Laws to combat terrorism before the November meeting.

The governments would also ask banks to strictly enforce the norm of "know-thy- customers" so that transactions made by terrorist outfits could be traced, he said.

Apart from the terror-funding, Vasudev said the meeting discussed ways to extend the benefits of globalisation to the emerging economies as also measures to address the instability caused by the transformation.

Developed nations need to remove barriers that was created in the way of the globalisation process of developing nations, the G-20 deputies' chairman said.

The developed nations also committed themselves to significantly step up aid to developing nations, as part of the millennium development goal (MDG) of reducing poverty by half, ensuring education for all, safe drinking water and higher nutrition levels and other social objectives by 2015, Vasudev said.

PTI