IMF Quota Legislation’s Private Sector Breakout
Four years after initial agreement at a G-20 summit and a year after another IMF quota review was due, the Obama Administration and Congress have yet to pass a bill enshrining minor funding and voting changes as the US, the original architect still with an over 15 percent controlling share, stands alone in refusal. The technical provisions are obscure, but basically enshrine an earlier post-2008 enlargement of Fund capacity to $950 billion and an incremental 5 percent power, and pledge transfer to big emerging economies mainly at the expense of European countries with their separate pre-EU representation. The package was delayed in Capitol Hill submission and House Republicans in particular, whose majority will be reinforced in the next Congress along with Senate takeover, have complained of lack of outreach and rationale and added reservations about lending policies in Europe and elsewhere to the bill’s specifics. The Treasury Department has been the lead agency actor and White House lobbyists have joined the effort, while outside advocacy crested earlier this year on an attempt to insert the clause in emergency Ukraine appropriations with a letter-writing campaign organized by the Bretton Wood Committee. It brought hundreds of signatures from former officials and interested professionals, along with a plea on behalf of former Cabinet heavyweights dating back decades, but the private banking and capital market community was not mobilized distinctly through its national trade associations or local presence in swing congressional districts. These financial sector practitioners have already staked future business and security on developing and frontier economies, and could aid adoption of the US-instigated Fund reforms by placing them in context and acting to monitor progress and broader issues at lawmaker request. Their dedicated participation could help clarify esoteric details and serve as a supplemental policy check for Washington-backed international lender direction.
The 2010 Seoul deal doubled quotas and increased emerging market control to over 40 percent in the immediate aftermath of post-crisis expansion, when representatives were already ascending to senior management ranks and the countries had offered Fund provisional credit lines as global worry centered on the US and Europe. Most directors will now be elected instead of appointed, and the Europeans have relinquished board seats. The proposal drew on previous appropriations and requested no new money, but the Congressional Budget Office assigned a $5 billion and later a $300 million contingent cost without elaboration to meet federal guidelines. Even that modest amount may be overstated since the US’s liquid claim has never been in default and the Fund has over $100 billion in precautionary balances and gold reserves. The higher contributions would enable access to a multiple of the sum as in Ukraine’s recent case promoted by President Obama. More controversially Greece before then obtained exceptional limits angering Washington and developing country shareholders alike, and the waiver has since been revisited with private sector debt reduction a key issue in both instances. As big demands continue from other regions including the Middle East and Africa, BRICS members awaiting action are pursuing their own alternatives for mutual support with the launch this year both of a joint development bank and currency reserve as well as China’s pan-Asia infrastructure lender. Along with the Bretton Woods Committee which was founded to back the international financial institutions on the Hill, the expertise and views of members from the Institute for International Finance, Emerging Market Traders Association, Bankers Association for Foreign Trade, US Chamber of Commerce and similar bodies could assist in improving the reform climate from the basic 2010 commitment through the subsequent range of priority Fund considerations and operations in a next session bid with analysis and events to refresh the stale quota debate.
