Oil-rich Norway said on Saturday it was ready to offer up to 4,56 billion US dollar to support the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and called for the fund to play a bigger role in supervising financial markets.
Norway said capital flows to developing countries were sharply declining, leaving the IMF and multilateral development banks among the very few institutions able to substantially increase lending to crisis-hit emerging markets.
Norways Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen said that “It is natural for Norway, who has considerable international reserves, to contribute to this end”
– In making this announcement, Norway is adding to the important steps already made by the EU and the Government of Japan toward stabilizing the global financial system during this period of unprecedented stress, the IMFs Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has made fortifying the IMF one of its primary goals for the meeting of the Group of 20. But China, India and other rising powers seem to believe that the made-in-America [financial] crisis has curtailed the ability of the United States to set the agenda.
They view the Western-dominated fund as a place to begin staking their claim to a greater voice in global economic affairs.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
