June 15, 2000
Japan will press its Group of Seven partners for Asia to be given a bigger voice in International Monetary Fund decision-making, a top government official said Thursday.
The IMF, long dominated by the United States and Europe, had to take account of Asia's growing role in the world economy, said vice finance minister for international affairs Haruhiko Kuroda.
The IMF must "reflect the reality of the world economy" if it wants "to continue to perform its central role as a truly global institution in the international financial system," he told the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan.
"Despite the fact that many emerging economies, including in Asia, have become important economic powers, their international trade has increased dramatically and their weight in the international financial market is growing, the allocation of quota shares, voting shares, and board representation of the Asian countries are limited," he said.
"I believe that an immediate review of quota allocation, reflecting changes in the world economy, is essential," Kuroda added.
"We would like to raise this issue at the Fukuoka meeting." Finance ministers from the elite Group of Seven nations will gather at Fukuoka in southwest Japan on July 8 to prepare for a Group of Eight summit from July 21 to 23 in the southern island of Okinawa.
The G8 adds Russia to the G7 members: Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
Japan has been pushing for an Asian monetary fund to bail out regional countries in times of crisis, an idea that is anathema to the United States which fears an erosion of the IMF's dominance.
Japan is the IMF's second biggest shareholder after the United States, with 6.33 percent of the Washington-based body's capital. Europe combined, however, can outvote Japan, with close to one-third of the voting rights. The Japanese government's grumbling about the IMF reached a head earlier this year when it put up Kuroda's predecessor, Eisuke Sakakibara, for the job of the organisation's managing director.
The post has traditionally always gone to a European, and was eventually taken in March by Germany's Horst Koehler.
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