Siluanov called on the IMF to return to its core tasks away from "optional" ones

MOSCOW, October 14. INTERFAX.RU - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) should return to its original, purely economic mandate, restore uniform and non-discriminatory approaches to lending to countries, develop fiscal recommendations, and build up its toolkit for overseeing their strict implementation. This opinion is contained in a statement by Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov ahead of the meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), which will be held in Bangkok as part of the annual meeting of the governing bodies of the IMF and the World Bank Group on October 15-17.

In addition to these events, the minister will take part in a meeting of G20 central bank governors and finance ministers.

In his statement, Siluanov noted that the fund's three functions - surveillance, lending, and capacity development - are currently weakening. As for surveillance, in his view, the fund devotes considerable attention to optional areas. "Therefore, we support the fund's intention to return to its key task - analyzing macroeconomic policy and preparing effective recommendations for countries," the statement says.

As for lending, in Siluanov's opinion, there is a high concentration of the fund's portfolio, uneven application of rules, and the influence of political factors on certain IMF decisions. "More than 61% of the IMF's outstanding credit is accounted for by the five largest borrowers. The high concentration is persistent: with growing loan maturities, the composition of the largest borrowers has not changed for five years, and over 90% of outstanding credit is owed by countries that have held debt to the fund for more than six years," the statement says. Lending to the same countries, in the minister's view, increases dependence, requires heightened attention to reserve creation, and also hinders the allocation of funds to the most needy, vulnerable states.

Siluanov drew attention to the problem of repeated breaches within individual credit programs. "Over the period 2002-2024, in 56% of programs under which countries were granted permission to deviate from quantitative performance criteria (QPC), breaches were repeated. Moderate flexibility in program implementation may be justified in conditions of shocks, but repeated breaches must not become the norm. In such cases, to preserve discipline among borrowers, the fund should set more specific, measurable, and time-bound corrective measures for countries," he explained.

The minister also noted the uneven application of the fund's rules, when the bulk of funds under higher-risk programs is provided at once, and lending rules are adapted to specific borrowers. "Exclusive practices favoring individual countries, which destroy the uniformity of approaches in the IMF's lending policy, are unacceptable," he emphasized.

In the minister's opinion, given the declining share of fully successful credit programs, the IMF should play a greater role in monitoring and implementing measures to reduce budget deficits and public debt of member countries.

"The fund needs to pay closer attention to monitoring systemically important reserve currency issuers and to analyze cross-border effects. Without effective and impartial IMF surveillance, the global financial system remains vulnerable to risks that are transmitted through reserve currency channels to other countries," Siluanov notes.