As debt-laden Europe expects IMF to come to its rescue, India today said resources of the multilateral lender have already been trebled and the countries under stress should look up to their central banks for funding.
India’s Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, also wanted the World Bank to chip in with more lending, along with IMF to respond to global financial problems. He is here for the meeting of G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors.
Intervening in the session on reforms of international monetary system, he said: “...we have trebled the resources of the IMF over the last few years. Our focus should now be on how to ensure that these resources are quickly mobilised and IMF’s instruments lending are adequately flexible’’.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s resources have gone up to $750 billion from $250 during the last three years.
Mr Pranab Mukherjee also said it should be ensured that IMF funds are used “only where all other sources have been exhausted, including through central banks and regional safety nets’’.
The IMF funds should now be used only for liabilities denominated in external currencies.
The Finance Minister said that even as the crisis is looming large, the World Bank’s annual lending is projected to come down to $15 billion in 2013 from $44 billion in 2010.
“The adequacy of World Bank resources should therefore be considered alongside those of IMF,” he said.
US also said that Europe has enough resources to solve its own problems. “IMF has very very substantial uncommitted resources,” the US Treasury Secretary, Ms Timothy Geithner, told CNBC.
IMF has already helped Eurozone nation Greece, but Europe expects another $350 billion.