Post date: Apr 23, 2012 8:59:6 AM
USA-Spring Economic Meetings -- World Bank, IMF decide to build solid economic firewall, propel IMF quota reform
CCTV BEIJING - The deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Zhu Min, highly praised the Spring Meetings of the IMF and World Bank Group for their achievements in building a solid "economic firewall" and propelling IMF quota reform.
The meetings were officially closed Sunday in Washington, D.C.. More than 6,000 finance ministers, central bank governors, and economists from over 180 countries conducted comprehensive evaluations and discussed in detail the global economy during the meeting sessions. Officials say they have reached consensus on some key issues.
The IMF ended its spring meeting with pledges of more than 430 billion US dollars from individual member countries in efforts to counter any fallout from the euro zone debt crisis.
The figure would nearly double the IMF's ability to put out any fires caused by an ailing Europe and its spillover effects.
The pledges came as a timid world economic recovery was threatened by renewed escalation of the euro zone crisis, and the IMF is trying to build a stronger "global firewall" to tackle the crisis and preserve world economic stability.
"Only with such a fund, can an economic firewall be built and inject confidence to the market," said Zhu. "Because actually everything comes from confidence, so this is very important."
The G20 countries also reaffirmed their commitment to fully implement IMF quota reforms during the spring meeting, which is considered by Zhu as another important achievement.
According to the 2010 Governance and Quota Reform Bill passed in 2010, the IMF should double its quota, with its member countries also adjusting their quotas.
In practice though, reforms are moving forward rather slowly, with member countries only achieving 60 percent of total quota expectations.
However, the IMF is fully confident it will accomplish the reform by the autumn meeting in October, according to Zhu.
"So it's very important that G20 countries, including the U.S., agree to accomplish the quota reform set in the 2010 Tokyo meeting. Not only gain important achievements, but accomplish," said Zhu.
Zhu also said that governments should continue to promote their own economic reforms, thus aiding a powerful global economic recovery.
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