Developing states say IMF reforms pace 'unacceptable'
Developing countries has dismissed the International Monetary Fund's pace of reforms to increase their voice in the troubled institution as "disappointing and unacceptable."
The Group of 24 developing countries, representing the majority of the IMF's membership but only an impotent minority in its operations, reiterated its call for a greater voice and democratic representation in the 185-nation Fund.
"A significant redistribution of voting power in favor of emerging market and developing countries as a group should be the overarching objective of the reform," said the G24, which represents African, Asian and Latin American countries, including powerhouses Nigeria, India and Brazil.
"The proposals tabled to date are disappointing and unacceptable as they fall far short of the reform's fundamental goals," they said on Friday in a joint statement after a meeting here ahead of this weekend's IMF and World Bank meetings.
The developing countries' exasperation comes as the 63-year-old IMF struggles with a reform program launched by outgoing managing director, Rodrigo Rato, who will step down after the meetings nearly two years before his term ends.
His successor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former Socialist finance minister of France, has pledged to make reform the core of his five-year mandate.
Argentina's vice economy minister, Oscar Tangelson, representing the chair of the G24 at a news briefing, said the group had taken "the fundamental step forward" of achieving a unanimous agreement on the basic criteria for redistributing the quotas, or voting rights, of member countries.
"There's no magic figure that we agreed on," Tangelson said in Spanish in response to a question. "We agreed on a process."
Tangelson said the process was more important, because "any rigid institution would be out of step with the times."
The developing countries were the engine of global growth in the past five years, he said.
"We are living in an unprecedented situation. Today it is the advanced countries that are facing crisis conditions and the developing countries must offset the consequent decline in global demand," he said.
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