First-time release: IMF releases Executive Board's work program to increase public awareness of its activities
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The work program is a road map for the work of the IMF's Executive Board, which consists of the 24 officials appointed or elected by the IMF's 182 member countries, and which meets on a regular basis to assess economic developments in individual and regional economies and the world economy, and to discuss and decide on the IMF's loans to member countries, as well as general policy issues affecting the international financial system.
"The release of the work program summary is an important step to enhance the transparency of the IMF's operations. Taken together with other recent actions, today's release shows a continued commitment to increase IMF openness," said Shailendra J. Anjaria, Director of the IMF's External Relations Department. The work program is prepared in the light of discussions each spring and fall at the IMF's Interim Committee, the ministerial body that considers the activities of the IMF. The current work program looks ahead to the fall meeting of the Interim Committee, scheduled for September 26,1999, and to the Joint Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank Group to be held September 28-30,1999.
The Board's agenda in the period ahead covers many issues, with two central special themes: reform of the architecture of the international financial system, and a strengthened framework for debt relief for the world's poorest countries, including the IMF's contribution to this latter initiative and the IMF's support for its poorest members.
Reform of international financial architecture. The new work program calls for discussion in four areas:
- involving the private sector in forestalling and resolving financial crises;
- analyzing key issues concerning exchange rate regimes, both among major international currencies and in emerging market economies;
- capital account liberalization, including the role of capital controls; and
- standards and transparency.
The Board will build on the progress made in the reform of the international financial architecture, including by ensuring that reforms already agreed on are incorporated into the regular work of the IMF, as appropriate. The Board will also review the experience of producing a series of experimental case studies of transparency practices in individual countries, and it will evaluate a revised version of the Code of Good Practices on Transparency in Monetary and Financial Policies.
The Board has...
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