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'Scrapping low-interest loans to poor states to prove wrong'

Fischer rebuffs US report pushing IMF reform
WASHINGTON. Mar 23: Radical proposals to refocus the International Monetary Fund would rob poor countries of money they urgently need and make It harder to set conditions to ensure that IMF lending works, the fund's acting boss said yesterday, reports Reuters.
IMF Acting Managing Director Stanley Fischer. Tn nis first response to a controversial report. told a news briefing i( would be wrong to scrap low-interest loans lor poor countries — one of the key suggestions In the document
It would also be wrong to eliminate the conditions that currently accompany IMF lending. Fischer added, lashing out at another recommendation in the report by a commission chaired by Carnegie Mellon University Professor Allan Meltzer.
"This institution Is too valu-
able to be treated as something that could be got rid of very quickly or whose nature should be fundamentally changed." Fischer said.
The Meltzer Commission, in proposals which have won a friendly reception from opponents of the IMF In the US congress, also suggested reducing the length of IMF loans, raising the Interest rates charged by the IMF and curbing the number of countries eligible of IMF cash. Some lawmakers want to Incorporate the Ideas Into new legislation to reform the global lender, which put together rescue packages worth tens of billions of dollars as economies crumbled in the face of the world economic crisis of 1997-99.
But Fischer said reforms already under way had transformed the IMF. Increasing the
volume of information available about the fund and about the economies of its members. "It's part of a revolution in the way the IMF does busbiess." he said.
The pre-crisis IMF had been stingy with Information, arguing that It could not release confidential economic data from member countries to a wider audience.
Fischer said the IMF was also streamlining the types of loan which countries could apply for. removing some Items from a complicated menu of op-
Flscher also rejected ideas from the commission that the IMF abandon Its traditional policies of linking its loans to these macroeconomic targets and lend almost exclusively to countries which "pre-qualified" for financial help.
Under these rules, loans to countries like Turkey would not have been possible. Fischer said, describing Turkey's Inflation-busting IMF loan and economic reform programme as an important way to "finally stabilise" the economy.
Core Inflation has been falling In Turkey since the IMF approved a $4 billion loan there last December.
He said structural reforms and efforts to improve the climate for Investment were the main priorities for Russia, the IMF's biggest single borrower.
He said it was too early to say what would happen to a stalled IMF loan alter Russia's presidential election this weekend. but noted that many Western visitors to Russia had been impressed by acting president Vladimir Putin, who Is widely expected to win the March 26 vote.