[stop-imf] IMF Head Urges More Reforms

[Robert Weissman]

IMF Head Urges More Reforms 
January 10, 2000 

PARIS (AP) via NewsEdge Corporation - 

Michel Camdessus, the outgoing managing director of the
International Monetary Fund, said today that the IMF should be given
better-defined responsibilities and more political weight. 

``I believe in the political responsibility of multilateral
institutions,''
Camdessus said in an interview with the French financial daily Les
Echos. 

Camdessus said that the IMF's interim committee _ currently a
consultative grouping with no executive powers _ should be
transformed into a full-fledged decision-making body. 

He also said that he would like to turn the G7 summit into a wider
gathering every two years by including the IMF's 24 board member
countries, the World Bank and the secretary-general of the United
Nations. 

``This would, at last, enable us to establish a coordination of
strategies,'' he said. 

The G7, or Group of Seven major industrial nations, gathers the
political leaders of the United States, Canada, Japan, Britain,
France, Germany and Italy for periodic meetings. 

Camdessus, who has made it clear he will resign in mid-February,
said he is proud of the support the IMF provided during his tenure to
countries such as Poland. 

``Today Poland can hope to join not only the European Union, but
also the euro,'' Camdessus said, referring to the single European
currency. ``They are aiming for a balanced budget in 2003, inflation
below 4 percent and, by that date, they should have completed
privatization.'' 

He warned that the dispute between the IMF and Russia was yet to be
resolved. 

He said that although Russia has met economic criteria set by the
IMF, the Russian Parliament has failed to adopt two key pieces of
legislation. One covers financial institution bankruptcies and the
other, transfers to state coffers from government-owned monopolies.