India Urged IMF & World Bank for Reforming Country Quota

WASHINGTON: India has reiterated the strong case for realigning the country quota shares of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in line with changed global economic realities, an official statement said.

"Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley emphasized that there is a strong case for realigning quota shares with the changed global economic realities," the Finance Ministry said in a release in New Delhi on Jaitley's address at a closed door meeting of the International Monetary and Finance Committee (IMFC) in Washington on Saturday.

IMFC is a key body providing strategic direction to the work and policies of the IMF.

"While expressing India's extreme disappointment with delay in completion of 15th General Review of Quota (GRQ) by Annual Meeting of 2017, the Finance Minister emphasized that the Fund should strictly abide by the new deadlines set for completing the 15th Review," it said.

Addressing the plenary, Arun Jaitley, Minister of Finance, Government of India gave a clear warning regarding the risks of low and negative interest rates and "significant loan impairments" in the banking system owing to global financial stability, calling for for "delevaraging" balance sheets to spur growth.

Jaitley is currently on official tour to Washington to attend the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank and other associated meetings.

He also participated in the plenary meeting of the Development Committee, which is the ministerial-level forum of the World Bank Group and the IMF for inter-governmental consensus building on development issues.