The Board of governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday approved a resolution giving more voting power to China, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey.

 

The radical overhaul was backed by 90.6 percent of the voters. Votes from governors exercising 85 percent of the total voting power were required to adopt the resolution.

 

The "Resolution on Quota and Voice Reform in the IMF" had been recommended by the IMF's Executive Board to the IMF Board of Governors.

 

"These reforms are the first step in a process that will increase the representation of many emerging market countries to reflect their increased weight in the global economy," said IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato.

 

The 184-member IMF, created to inject stability into the ruins of the post-war financial system, remains dominated by the US, Europe and Japan.

 

For example, despite its growing stature as a global economic powerhouse, China currently has less voting clout than Belgium and the Netherlands combined.

 

The four countries to benefit from the changes are said by the IMF to be the only members under-represented in all four of the criteria that determine a country's voting rights.

 

Those criteria are gross domestic product, openness to trade, the "variability" of economy, in other words how volatile its growth is, and reserves.

 

After the change, China now has 8,090.1 million Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), or 3.72 percent of the total, up from the previous 6,369.2 million, or 2.98 percent.

 

In total, the four countries now have 7.07 percent of IMF's total voting rights, up from 5.41 percent.

 

In addition to the increasing voting power of the four countries, the resolution further requests that by the 2007 Annual Meeting, the IMF Executive Board reach an agreement on a new quota formula to guide the assessment of the adequacy of members' quotas in the IMF. Such a formula should provide a simpler and more transparent means of capturing members' relative positions in the world economy.

 

The Executive Board is also requested to propose an amendment to the IMF's Article of Agreement to provide for at least a doubling of the basic votes that each member possesses, so as to protect the voting power of low-income countries as a group.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 19, 2006)