India to invest $10bn in IMF, says Pranab

5 September 2009

LONDON: India is set to invest up to $10 billion in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of a major thrust to wrest a greater say in the running of international financial institutions, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee announced on Friday.

"India has decided to invest up to $10 billion of its reserves in notes issued by the International Monetary Fund," Mukherjee said after a meeting of the finance ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) in London. The Indian pledge is part of a total of $80 billion that the four BRIC countries will invest into the IMF in order to replenish its fund aimed at helping out countries that are struggling in the current financial crisis.

China will account for $50 billion of this amount, and the rest will be borne by India, Russia and Brazil. In return, the BRIC countries want a greater say in the running of the IMF and other international financial institutions such as the World Bank, including a larger share of quotas and voting, said Brazil's finance minister Guido Mantega.

Part of the BRIC meeting was joined by US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner in a move that Mukherjee described as "an acknowledgement of the group's emergence as a key voice in global economic and financial issues".