IMF quota reform stalled over US Congress’ position - Russian Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/. The vote and quota reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has not made any progress in the past four years due to the US Congress’ position, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Vadim Lukov said. The BRICS grouping of leading emerging market economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has a task to assist in every possible way to the efforts "to unblock the IMF’s reform, which has been marking time for four years due to the position of the US Congress," the Russian diplomat said. "This situation cannot be tolerated, considering that the global financial system has undergone changes since the IMF was established," Lukov said. The IMF was established by Western countries to implement their interests. But now the global economy has become a multi-polar system, prompting the need for a fairer vote and quota reform at the IMF, the Russian diplomat said. The leaders of the G20 group of advanced and leading emerging market economies agreed in Seoul in 2010 on reviewing the IMF’s quotas in favor of emerging market and developing countries to better reflect ongoing changes in the world. The IMF’s 14th quota review stipulates that the Fund’s quotas should be doubled from 238.4 billion Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to SDR 476.8 billion. The review also envisages a more than 6 percent quota shift from over-represented developed countries to under-represented developing countries. The United States, which has a quota of 17.69 percent of SDRs and 16.75 percent of votes, has not ratified the quota review until now. Read more