NEW DELHI, Nov 7: Fear of a 2008-style financial disaster is holding back the global recovery but business must be more confident and seek out new investment openings, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Wednesday.

“We can't get over the overhang” of the financial crisis that followed the collapse of US investment powerhouse house Lehman Brothers, the Canadian leader said in a speech opening the Indian World Economic Forum in New Delhi.

Businesses worldwide are refraining from investing because they fear a “catastrophic event” that will “send everything into a tailspin”, said Harper, adding that this “continues to restrain the global recovery”.

He called such fears overblown and urged financial decision-makers to display more confidence in making investments and help repair the global economy.

“Don't worry about today's uncertainty -- look at the opportunities,” he urged, saying this was the strategy pursued by Canada which has fared better than many developed economies since the onset of the financial crisis.

There are signs of rising global trade protectionism like that which hampered recovery from the Great Depression in the 1930s and which could still push the world into a prolonged recession, Harper conceded.

“But it (protectionism) is not an avalanche -- it is not yet something to panic about,” Harper told business leaders who are discussing ways to boost India's faltering economic growth at the two-day forum.

“Most leaders get it on the big picture” that trade barriers will harm rather than help their economies, said Harper who later on Wednesday moved on to the northern Indian state of Punjab from where thousands of Canadians originate.

Still, he said it is clear that a comprehensive deal in the Doha round of world trade liberalisation talks is out of reach for now and Canada instead is negotiating multilateral and bilateral deals with countries such as India.

Harper's speech came a day after the two countries clinched an agreement opening the door to Canadian exports of nuclear supplies to the energy-hungry South Asian nation.

The pact ends almost four decades of awkward relations after India used Canadian nuclear materials to stage its first atomic test, and will allow Canadian uranium to be used to power Indian reactors.

Canada hopes to conclude a free trade pact with India next year.

“Our foreign investment negotiations (with India) have come much of the way but we have to be serious about getting them across the finish line,” he said.

“The untapped economic potential between us is massive and undeniable but will not develop (by itself),” he said.

Harper, who will spend the last day of his Indian trip on Thursday in the high-tech southern city of Bangalore, compared the countries to lovers depicted in India's Bollywood movies who must overcome obstacles to get together.“There is a kind of parallel to Canada and India and the typical Bollywood plot,” he said. “We have to work determinedly to get to the happy ending we want.”—AFP