[stop-imf] Meltzer Commission update

[Robert Weissman]

More information on this as events unfold.

Robert Weissman
Essential Information			|   Internet:	rob@essential.org

IMF Loan Activity Studied
Fri, 3 Mar 2000 16:00:15 PST Story from AP / MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics
Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A commission appointed by Congress to study the
International Monetary Fund and other lending agencies is recommending that
the IMF focus on short-term emergency loans to countries in trouble.
The International Financial Institution Advisory Commission said in a
statement Friday that the 11-member panel unanimously supported a proposal
that the IMF restrict its efforts to short-term relief for members having
trouble meeting their balance-of-payment obligations.
``The current practice of extending long-term loans for poverty relief or
other purposes should end,'' the commission said.
The Clinton administration, pushing its own package of IMF changes, also has
recommended that the 182-nation institution leave long-term development
loans to its sister lending organization, the World Bank.
In another unanimous vote, the advisory panel recommended that the IMF, the
World Bank and the various regional development banks forgive all of the
loans they are carrying to around 40 of the world's poorest nations, many of
them in sub-Saharan Africa.
The IMF and World Bank, with the United States and other rich countries,
have launched initiatives to forgive a greater portion of the debt owed by
these nations than previous debt-relief efforts.
The multinational agencies are not proposing to wipe out all the debt as the
commission did, in cases where the poor nations demonstrate they are
pursuing effective economic reform policies.
Jerry O'Driscoll, staff director for the commission, said in addition to
unanimous recommendations, other parts of the comprehensive report dealing
with the future of the IMF and the World Bank were approved on 8-3 votes.
O'Driscoll refused to reveal those recommendations, saying they have to be
presented to Congress first. But he said the proposals deal with ``extensive
reforms'' of both the IMF and the World Bank. The full report is to be
released next Wednesday at a Capitol Hill news conference.
The commission, chaired by Alan Meltzer, an economics professor at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh, was created by Congress in 1998 as a
condition for increasing U.S. financial support to the IMF. Six members were
appointed by House and Senate Republican leaders and five by Democratic
congressional leaders.
The three commission members who voted no on the final report were appointed
by Democrats -- C. Fred Bergsten, head of the Washington think tank
Institute for International Economics; Jerome Levinson, a law professor at
American University in Washington; and former Democratic Rep. Esteban Torres
of California.