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China wants moves on IMF voting at G20: officials

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-09-15 17:02

BEIJING: China wants to see specific steps at the upcoming G20 summit towards increasing the role of China and other developing countries in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a pair of officials said on Tuesday.

In a briefing to lay out China's positions ahead of the September 24-25 summit in Pittsburgh, assistant central bank governor Guo Qingping said the meeting should "set further specific goals for transferring voting rights from developed countries to developing countries" in the IMF and World Bank, including on timing.

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Zhu Guangyao, an assistant finance minister, said at the same briefing that China expects voting rights in both those institutions eventually to be equally distributed between developed countries and developing countries.

In the IMF, developed countries currently have 57 percent of voting rights, with developing countries taking the remainder; for the World Bank, developed nations have 56 percent of voting rights, Zhu said.

"These proportions should be altered. They should gradually achieve a balance of 50 percent to 50 percent proportions. We hope that as reform of the international financial system continues, this balance will be achieved," Zhu said.

Brazil, Russia, India and China this month proposed a 7 percent shift in IMF quotas in favour of developing countries, more than the 5 percent the United States is proposing.

Zhu added that countries should not talk lightly about exiting from economic stimulus policies.

The central bank's Guo added that China wants to see basic stability in the international monetary system to help the world recover from the financial crisis.

Zhou Xiaochuan, China's central bank governor, caused a stir in financial markets earlier this year when he said the dollar should eventually be replaced by a new global reserve currency, but Chinese leaders have since said that this was mainly an academic idea for now.