The spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund: ”The Washington moment”
Date
23/04/2012
On 20-21 April, the member countries of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) met in Washington in connection with the spring meeting of the IMF. The Swedish delegation included Governor Stefan Ingves, Deputy Governor Barbro Wickman-Parak, Finance Minister Anders Borg and Minister for International Development Cooperation Gunilla Carlsson.
One of the conclusions from the spring meeting was that the global economy has begun a gradual recovery, but that there are still significant risks. Important measures that have helped to stabilise the situation around the world have been taken at the national and international levels, but active policy work is still necessary. The discussions at the meeting covered, for example, the additional policy measures it would be desirable to take in individual member countries.
The IMF has also asked for funds to strengthen its lending capacity and in the week before the spring meeting the Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, worked intensively to get the member countries to commit to further contributions to the Fund. It was in this context that Sweden confirmed its willingness to lend USD 10 billion to the IMF. The fact that some countries announced their willingness to contribute at an early stage may have been decisive in enabling the IMF to confirm during the spring meeting that commitments amounting to at least USD 430 billion have been made by the member countries. This was immediately referred to as "the Washington moment", which is a reference to "the London moment" of 2009 when the G20 countries agreed to work to triple the resources of the IMF.
During the meeting, the member countries also agreed to continue the work to strengthen the supervisory role of the IMF. One of the main aims is to increase the capacity of the IMF to assess risks at the global and national levels and how these may affect financial stability in the global economy. Other issues discussed at the meeting included influence and the governance of the IMF.
See external links:
