China urges rich countries to share

By Fu Jing and Huang Xiangyang (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-16 07:02

China wants equality for developing countries at the table of global financial institutions and will push for change at the upcoming G20 summit, but the nation is not yet ready to urge its currency -- the RMB -- be internationalized.

Officials Tuesday raised the issue of equality within the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, in a bid to get the institutions to better represent the changing global economic geography after they are rebuilt following the financial crisis.

Experts believe China's push for fairer and better-regulated financial institutions will top the agenda at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh on Sept 24-25.

"China expects voting rights in both of those institutions to eventually be equally distributed between developed countries and developing countries," said assistant finance minister Zhu Guangyao.

Zhu Tuesday joined senior cabinet officials at a briefing ahead of President Hu Jintao's attendance at several key meetings next week.

Between Sept 21 and 25, Hu is set to attend a UN climate change summit, a General Assembly debate, nuclear nonproliferation talks and the G20 summit.

Guo Qingping, assistant governor of the People's Bank of China, also said at the briefing that the G20 summit should "set further specific goals for transferring voting rights from developed countries to developing countries".

Developed countries currently have 57 percent of voting rights at the IMF, with the US alone controlling 17 percent. At the World Bank, rich nations control 56 percent of voting rights, Zhu said.

The IMF has long been dominated by the US and Europe, but the financial crisis has given emerging economies a chance to push for change.

IMF officials have said reforms are being fast-tracked and dynamic economies and emerging markets are likely to gain more input.

Guo said the G20 summit will also offer an opportunity to plan reform of the shareholding structure at the IMF and World Bank and find ways to give more senior positions to people from developing countries.

Zhang Xiaojing, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China deserves more input on the world stage but he cautioned against pushing too hard.

"Though our economic weight has dramatically increased in recent years, China is not yet a global economic locomotive and leader," Zhang said. "Our high-dependence on foreign trade has shown our economic fragility."

But, he said China is "absolutely right" to call for more input for emerging economies.

"The global financial architecture should represent the changing economic geography," Zhang said.

Andrew Cooper, professor of political sciences at Canada's Waterloo University, said the international community should encourage capital-surplus countries, including China and Saudi Arabia, to commit more funds to the IMF during the medium term, something that would require proportional increases in IMF voting quotas.

Guo added that it was too early to talk about internationalizing China's currency.

"We should be very cautious in discussing internationalization of the country's currency," said Guo, who had many reasons why China should take the long view.

He said China's economy is still small, compared to the US; and he pointed out that China's financial system is fledging. It's currency exchange is also still highly regulated.

"Market forces, not our own urging, will determine whether the currency will be internationalized," Guo said.