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Reuters – European Central Bank Executive Board member Juergen Stark was quoted on Tuesday as criticizing decisions made at the G20 summit to boost the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs).
Stark suggested in a newspaper article that the decision was potentially inflationary as it would create "helicopter money" and that it had not been properly thought out.
Last week leaders from the Group of 20 wealthy and emerging economies agreed to support a general allocation of $250 billion worth of International Monetary Fund’s SDRs alongside other measures to boost the Fund’s firepower.
Boston Globe – The leaders of Germany, Britain, France, and Italy yesterday said that the resources of the International Monetary Fund should be doubled, to $500 billion, to help head off new problems in countries already hit hard by the global economic and financial crisis.
The officials also said, in a statement clearly aimed at hedge funds and other big private pools of capital, that "all financing markets and participants" need to fall under regulation in the future. And they vowed to make a tough push against tax havens.
With one eye on a crisis that is rapidly spreading to Eastern Europe and even countries that use the euro, the leaders highlighted the crisis-prevention role of the IMF, an institution whose relevance to the current global economy seemed in doubt only a few years ago.
Reuters – China, setting out its stall for the next global financial summit, wants the International Monetary Fund to get tougher with developed countries that let their economies run off the rails.
In a position paper prepared for the April 2 meeting in London of the Group of 20, China calls for more power for developing countries in the IMF and World Bank and issues a warning against investment protection.
On financial regulation, the memo says accounting standards and credit ratings should be adjusted to contain the "pro-cyclical" bias of financial institutions to ramp up lending and investment when times are good, leading to excessive risks.
