Japan Offers 2.7 B. Dlrs to Help Low-Income Countries

Istanbul, Oct. 4 (Jiji Press)--Japan will provide about 2.7 billion
dollars to the International Monetary Fund's program to help low-income
countries, Japanese Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said Sunday.

"Japan, as a country that has been making the largest contribution
to the Fund's lending program to low-income countries, will commit to
providing support both for financial resources and subsidizing interest,"
Fujii told an annual meeting of the International Monetary and Financial
Committee here.
"We must not forget that the current crisis has seriously affected
low-income countries," Fujii stressed.
The pledge will not pose any financial burden on Japan because it
will be fully covered by the IMF's special drawing rights allocated to the
country.
At the IMFC meeting, Fujii and other participants agreed the IMF
will give more voting power to emerging and developing economies, as agreed
on at the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh late last month.
Specifically, "we support a shift in quota share to dynamic
emerging market and developing countries of at least 5 pct from
over-represented countries to under-represented countries using the current
quota formula as the basis to work from," the IMF said in a statement issued
after the IMFC meeting.
The participants urged the international lending agency to study
and report by the next annual meeting of the IMFC on the future financing
role of the fund, including a measure to strengthen its capacity to help its
members cope with financial volatility.
The next meeting will be held in Washington on April 24, 2010.