IMF director Christine Lagarde has welcomed pledges from Switzerland, Poland and other countries to provide some $34 billion in additional funding for the world lender.
Lagarde, in separate statements late Wednesday, singled out Switzerland and Poland for increasing their contributions, hailing their “enduring support for the spirit of multilateralism.”
“Ensuring the Fund has sufficient resources to tackle crises and to promote global economic stability is in the interests of all our members,” she said.
The IMF statement said “Switzerland and other countries” had pledged $26 billion of increased funding while Poland had agreed to provide $8 billion.
“This brings to about $320 billion the commitments received so far. I am, (of) course, very encouraged by this strong demonstration of support for the Fund, and I look forward to further commitments from our broader membership.”
In a Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung interview published this week, Lagarde revealed that the International Monetary Fund is seeking some $400 billion for expanding its crisis intervention “firepower.”
That was sharply lower than the original target of $500 billion. Last week Lagarde said the Fund was lowering its target, citing a slight easing of financial tensions, both globally and in the eurozone.
The pledges from Switzerland are in addition to previous pledges for increased contributions from the Euro Area of €150 billion (about US$200 billion); Japan of US$60 billion; Sweden of at least US$10 billion; Norway of SDR 6 billion (about US$9.3 billion); Poland of €6.27 billion (about US$8 billion); and Denmark’s Nationalbank of €5.3 billion (about US$7.0 billion), and Japan, which pledged $60 billion.
