The 184 member governments of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday overwhelmingly backed a plan to boost the voting shares of China, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey, German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck said, according to World Bank Press Review.
The overhaul aims to correct the under-representation of countries such as China, which has fewer votes than Belgium or the Netherlands even though its economy, the world’s fourth-largest, is twice their combined size.
90.6 percent of the IMF members, currently meeting in Singapore, have approved the quota increase to the four countries which Mr. Steinbrueck described as an important and very good step.
– Otherwise, it would have cast a shadow over the IMF meeting, he said.
The four countries to benefit from the changes are said by the IMF to be the only members under-represented on all four of the criteria that determine a country’s voting rights. Those criteria are the member’s gross domestic product (GDP), its openness to trade, the “variability” of its economy, in other words how volatile its growth is, and the amount of its reserves.
The plan, which has been called the biggest shake-up in the fund in a generation, has drawn fire from some countries that fear losing power and others upset they will not gain enough influence.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
