Geithner: give emerging markets more IMF power

Reuters, WASHINGTON, Sat Apr 24, 2010 12:23pm EDT

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (L) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn leave after a family photo of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) at IMF headquarters in Washington April 24, 2010. (Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas)

(Reuters) - Emerging-market economies should be given an increased say in global financial institutions at the cost of rich countries, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Saturday.

In a speech to the International Monetary Fund, Geithner repeated a call for emerging market countries to adopt market-oriented currency exchange rates and said the U.S. would back developing counties in a bid for more IMF power.

He said what was on the table from the developed world in talks on the issue did not go far enough.

"We support a reduction in the size of the Board that preserves the existing number of emerging market and developing country chairs, including a move to all-elected chairs," Geithner said.

A current effort to rejig voting quotas within the IMF "falls short" of what is needed to give an adequate say to developing markets.

(Reporting by Glenn Somerville; editing by Patrick Graham)

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