Wednesday, September 20 2006 14:24 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Singapore: IMF today(Sept 20, 2006) promised to carry out further reforms that would open up the possibility of more powers in the Fund for India, which along with 22 other developing countries voted against granting of more rights for China and three others in the multi-lateral world body.

Wrapping up the week-long annual meeting of World Bank-IMF here today, Fund Managing Director Rodrigo De Rato said this week's vote in favour of more powers to China, Mexico, Turkey and South Korea was not the end of our reforms on quotas, but the beginning of a process that will continue during the next year.

He praised India for having agreed to work with the multilateral institution to carry forward the second stage of IMF reforms, which opens up the possibility of New Delhi getting more voting rights in the world body.

In the second stage of reforms, broader adjustments for more emerging economies are planned and poorer members are likely to get more voting powers in the IMF.

In Monday's poll, 90.6 per cent of votes went in favour of ad-hoc increase in quota for the four countries as a result of which India's voting rights got diminished to 1.91 per cent from 1.95 per cent along with reduction in powers for other countries.

Indian Finance Minister P Chidambaram had termed the formula for this phase of reform as flawed and reminded those who voted for the resolution of their promise that the second stage of reforms will also be carried out.

Before leaving for South Korea yesterday, Chidambaram promised to cooperate with IMF in the second stage of reforms, which he said should start right now.