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Imf wins new powers to police global economy { March 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-04-22T234358Z_01_N22245674_RTRUKOC_0_UK-GROUP-IMF.xmlhttp://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-04-22T234358Z_01_N22245674_RTRUKOC_0_UK-GROUP-IMF.xml
IMF wins new powers to police global economy
Sun Apr 23, 2006 12:44 AM BST
By Lesley Wroughton and Sumeet Desai
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund won new powers to police the world economy after its 184 member countries endorsed a new framework to monitor how the economic policies of one country affects others.
The countries, represented by finance ministers or central bank governors, also agreed that some emerging economies needed more say in IMF decision-making that could lead to a proposal for ad hoc increases in their voting shares by the next IMF gathering in September.
"We resolve to make the IMF more fit for purpose in a global economy and more able to address challenges that are quite different from those of 1945, when the IMF was created," Chancellor Gordon Brown, who also chairs the IMF's policy-setting committee, told a news conference.
"The IMF should be more able to address global questions with multilateral surveillance," Brown said.
The International Monetary and Financial Committee, or IMFC, said IMF surveillance would focus on spillovers and links between countries' economic policies and reaffirm their monetary, fiscal and exchange-rates frameworks.
IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato will have the authority to bring nations together on an ad hoc basis to thrash out any economic misalignments based on IMF analyses.
Officials said this would create a new forum that better reflected the rise of Asia in the global economy and could possibly replace bodies like the Group of Seven industrial countries, which some say can no longer call all the shots.
One of the problems facing the G7 is that major economic players like China are not part of the club, even though it is the fourth-largest economy in the world.
PRESSURE ON CHINA
The United States has pressured the IMF to broaden its surveillance to include the exchange rates of emerging countries, as Washington also pushes Beijing to loosen its tightly managed currency.
The IMF made the case that such a move was also critical to co-ordinating economic policies and preventing the unruly unwinding of huge global imbalances in trade and investment flows that could spark a world recession.
Member countries welcomed efforts to enhance monitoring of exchange rates but most said they were hesitant about the IMF publishing analyses on the theoretical fair value of currency rates because it was market sensitive.
China, however, said this did not mean the IMF should interfere in how countries manage their exchange rates.
"Fund surveillance should comply with the objective of promoting exchange and financial stability and respect the autonomy as to exchange rate systems that is granted to all (IMF) members," China's Governor Zhou Xiaochuan told the IMF committee.
In addition, Japanese Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, said rebalancing the global economy not only had to do with more Asian currency flexibility.
"I believe what is paramount now for each member country and region is to implement steadily the policy measures needed to strengthen its respective economic fundamentals, which would contribute to resolving global imbalances in a smooth and orderly manner while maintaining sustainable growth." he said.
STRONGER VOICE
Addressing reporters, the IMF's Rato said the committee gave him a clear mandate to propose changes to the voting shares, or quotas, of some countries by September.
"I have spoken several times about the need for increases in voting power for some countries, including a number of emerging market economies, to ensure they have a role in the fund's decision-making process that accords with their increased importance in the world economy," he said.
An IMF proposal already circulated among members would give ad hoc increases to a small number of countries like China, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey. Other nations that could also possibly qualify include Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.
But tensions remain between industrial and developing countries over how to reallocate voting power beyond initial increases in the quotas for some emerging nations.
The Group of 24 finance ministers for developing countries from Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America on Friday called for a more comprehensive package with timelines to greater representation, fearing changes could stall after any initial increases.
They said it was "imperative" that a concrete proposal is worked out by the September meeting, which should also include a new formula to calculate quotas based on purchasing power parity of a country and not gross domestic product as is currently the case.
U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Saturday he would support the ad hoc increase "if it is credibly linked as a down payment on near-term fundamental reform," like those to increase the fund's watchdog role on currency issues.
Although it is generally recognised that China's quotas do not properly reflect its global economic weight, an increase in its voting share may be controversial in light of proposed U.S. legislation threatening a veto of such a move in the absence of Chinese currency reforms.
German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck called for "equal treatment," saying some European countries -- like Germany -- were also underrepresented in their quotas. Countries like Ireland and Spain are also considered underrepresented.
"We all agreed to focus on countries which were clearly underrepresented," French Finance Minister Thierry Breton told a news conference, also pointing to the need to give countries in Africa a stronger voice.
(Additional reporting by Tim Ahmann and Gernot Heller)
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