By Anna Willard
LECCE, Italy, June 13 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund has collected nearly all the money pledged to it at a meeting of G20 leaders in April, the fund's managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Saturday.
The G20 committed to tripling IMF resources to a total of $750 billion, adding $500 billion to $250 billion in existing resources to allow the fund to respond to crises in emerging markets and developing countries.
There had been fears that signs of improvement in the world economy could take the pressure of the leaders of G20 countries, which comprises the major developed and emerging economies, to come up with the funds.
'We are very close to completing all that has been asked by the G20 meeting in London on resources,' he told a briefing after a meeting of G8 finance ministers.
The G8 ministers confirmed their commitment to the funding.
Strauss-Kahn said he expected the U.S. Congress to approve the $100 billion U.S. portion next week and European countries were just working out technical issues about its $100 billion contribution.
'You have seen the announcement by the Chinese, the Russians, the Brazilians, the Norwegians, Switzerland, Canada so we are close to having this done,' he said.
NEW BONDS
China has said it would make its contribution through a $50 billion purchase of new IMF bonds and Russia has committed to buy $10 billion.
Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said 'it was hard to say for now' whether Moscow could buy more than that.
Russia said last week it would cut the share of U.S. Treasuries in its $400 billion reserves in favour of the bonds, an announcement which led to a fall in the U.S. dollar.
'Of course it decreases their holding in other resources,' Strauss-Kahn said.
'I think that the amount will not damage the relationship between Russia and the markets or Russia and U.S. Treasuries. The $10 bln is welcome and showed the will of Russia to be an active member of the IMF.'
He said the bonds could not be traded by the private sector.
'There is what you call a small secondary market which is a market among the bondholders, meaning the governments or the central banks so among those participants there will be a market but it is not bonds that are likely to be held by the private sector,' Strauss-Kahn said.
He also said a G20 plan to issue $250 billion in new Special Drawing Rights to member countries to boost liquidity would be done by the middle of July. It had been scheduled to go to a vote on the IMF board by the end of June.
'We have to wait until July 13 for the American executive director (representative) to be able to vote in favour of the SDR,' he said.
'So mid-July, the SDR issuance will be done.'
A concessional lending plan for low income countries, which was initially expected to be worth $6 billion was now likely to total $8 billion, he said.
'We see demand a little higher,' he said.
Some of this money will come from proceeds of the sale of 403 tonnes of gold but an IMF spokesman later there was no plan to increase the size of the gold sale despite the higher concessional lending number.
(Editing by Patrick Graham; Reuters Messaging: anna.willard.reuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: G8 IMF/RESOURCES
COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.
LECCE, Italy, June 13 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund has collected nearly all the money pledged to it at a meeting of G20 leaders in April, the fund's managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Saturday.
The G20 committed to tripling IMF resources to a total of $750 billion, adding $500 billion to $250 billion in existing resources to allow the fund to respond to crises in emerging markets and developing countries.
There had been fears that signs of improvement in the world economy could take the pressure of the leaders of G20 countries, which comprises the major developed and emerging economies, to come up with the funds.
'We are very close to completing all that has been asked by the G20 meeting in London on resources,' he told a briefing after a meeting of G8 finance ministers.
The G8 ministers confirmed their commitment to the funding.
Strauss-Kahn said he expected the U.S. Congress to approve the $100 billion U.S. portion next week and European countries were just working out technical issues about its $100 billion contribution.
'You have seen the announcement by the Chinese, the Russians, the Brazilians, the Norwegians, Switzerland, Canada so we are close to having this done,' he said.
NEW BONDS
China has said it would make its contribution through a $50 billion purchase of new IMF bonds and Russia has committed to buy $10 billion.
Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said 'it was hard to say for now' whether Moscow could buy more than that.
Russia said last week it would cut the share of U.S. Treasuries in its $400 billion reserves in favour of the bonds, an announcement which led to a fall in the U.S. dollar.
'Of course it decreases their holding in other resources,' Strauss-Kahn said.
'I think that the amount will not damage the relationship between Russia and the markets or Russia and U.S. Treasuries. The $10 bln is welcome and showed the will of Russia to be an active member of the IMF.'
He said the bonds could not be traded by the private sector.
'There is what you call a small secondary market which is a market among the bondholders, meaning the governments or the central banks so among those participants there will be a market but it is not bonds that are likely to be held by the private sector,' Strauss-Kahn said.
He also said a G20 plan to issue $250 billion in new Special Drawing Rights to member countries to boost liquidity would be done by the middle of July. It had been scheduled to go to a vote on the IMF board by the end of June.
'We have to wait until July 13 for the American executive director (representative) to be able to vote in favour of the SDR,' he said.
'So mid-July, the SDR issuance will be done.'
A concessional lending plan for low income countries, which was initially expected to be worth $6 billion was now likely to total $8 billion, he said.
'We see demand a little higher,' he said.
Some of this money will come from proceeds of the sale of 403 tonnes of gold but an IMF spokesman later there was no plan to increase the size of the gold sale despite the higher concessional lending number.
(Editing by Patrick Graham; Reuters Messaging: anna.willard.reuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: G8 IMF/RESOURCES
COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters.