The Spring gathering of the International Monetary Fund is approaching. China, Russia and other major developing nations are angry about a delay in reforms that give them more voting rights at the IMF. Now the countries are pushing forward with the reforms without waiting for the United States. Skeptism is growing about the new powers within international systems.
Britain is urging the US Congress to approve reforms at the International Monetary Fund that would give more power to emerging economies at the institution.
In a recent public address, British Finance Minister George Osborne said quote: "The failure of the U.S. Congress to ratify the agreed IMF reforms is bad for the institution and bad for the international community. I urge the administration and Congress to act to pass them now."
Most of the IMF’s 188 member nations have approved the reforms, which were originally hammered out in 2010. But opposition from the House and Senate Republicans have blocked efforts by the White House to pass the reform. Experts say it’s crucial for developing nations to have a seat at the table.
"The main rules of the game internationally on how countries are supposed to deal with the currencies, on reserves on some of the big, big questions on international finance are really negotiated out at the IMF. So for these countries, who had not had much of a voice in the international rules of the game, when they were substantially poorer and smaller than they are now. Now that they’ve grown so rapidly and their economies are so large, they want a seat at the table. They want to be able to participate in shaping the rules that they would partially have to live by," said Bruce Jones, senior fellow of Brookings Institution.
If the US Congress gives the reforms the green light, it would make China the IMF’s third-largest member. It would also revamp the IMF board, reducing the dominance of Western European nations. Some analysts say US lawmakers are concerned about relinquishing power to some emerging economies.
"First, Congress is traditionally fairly skeptical about international institutions and that’s been true since the founding of international systems. Second, there’s a lot of skepticism about China’s intentions on issues like currency reform and third, now, unfortunately there’s a lot of concern about Russia. And because this package was negotiated in a context where sort of all the emerging powers see their shares rise, there’s now a new preoccupation about seeing Russia’s shares rise, even though Russia’s shares will rise by a tiny fraction," said Bruce Jones, senior fellow of Brookings Institution.
Source: CCTV
