Abstract

1987 IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting

The prominent topics the participants in the IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting in Washington, September 29 to October 1, 1987, were facing were the need to control the international debt emergency, efforts to stabilize the dollar rate, ways to reduce external economic imbalances, to secure inflation-free economic growth and to guarantee the transfer of resources to the developing countries on an adequate scale, as well as the future role of the Bretton Woods institutions. The Managing Director of the IMF, M. Michel Camdessus, advocated an increase in the Structural Adjustment Facility (SAF) while underlining the need for a substantial increase in the IMF quotas and calling for intensified efforts for an improved functioning of the international monetary system. The World Bank’s willingness to play a. dynamic role in the promotion of economic growth and the struggle against poverty was emphasized by the President of the World Bank, Mr. Barber Conable. In the discussion about improved international coordination, the governors of the industrial countries reaffirmed their willingness to meet their obligations. Many of the representatives of the developing nations voiced complaints about shortcomings in the economic environment, insufficient access to the industrial countries’ markets and capital inflows that had completely dried out in part. The representatives of the developing countries proposed various solutions in the discussion on international indebtedness. A general release of the developing countries’ obligation to repay their loans, as demanded by several, has not been accepted.