MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) - The United States is blocking reforms to the International Monetary Fund that the G20 has already agreed upon, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday.
"The International Monetary Fund needs reform. Most importantly, its parameters have been agreed upon by the Group of Twenty. We have been and are still working in this circle [G20], and we believe it well reflects a timely correlation of forces, especially economic ones, in the big picture," Ryabkov said in an interview with Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency.
"The problem is that these decisions are not being implemented. First of all, it is the US administration that is blocking the agreed reforms of the fund," Ryabkov added.
Earlier this year, the finance chiefs from 20 leading economies around the world gave the United States until the end of the year to ratify the IMF reforms, which include giving developing nations more power within the financial institution.
The deputy foreign minister said the creation of the New Development Bank, or the BRICS Development Bank, and a reserve currency pool could be an answer to the situation that would help stabilize the financial projects of BRICS states – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The BRICS last month announced the creation of two $100 billion finance bodies similar to the Western-dominated World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as a buffer in conditions of capital volatility, overcoming the lack of short-term liquidity and rapidly offsetting fiscal deficits triggered by economic turbulence. Russia’s contribution would amount to $18 billion.
Ryabkov said, however, the BRICS Development Bank is not a rival to the IMF.
"There is no competition. First of all, there is a mismatch in resources between what the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund have accumulated and what the BRICS have undertaken. Second, the tasks are very different. The BRICS' instruments are not directed outward. They are additional tools for solving certain tasks, although not necessarily within the BRICS boarders," Ryabkov said.
The deputy minister added that the BRICS need to decrease their dependence on "Britton-Wood institutions," the World Bank and the IMF, including on payment systems, such as Visa and MasterCard, especially in Russia.
Visa and MasterCard previously threatened to block Russian users as part of Western economic sanctions against Moscow in light of the Ukrainian crisis.
