The application will be considered first by the IMF’s executive board. After its consideration, the board will submit a report to the board of governors of the IMF with recommendations in the form of a “membership resolution.” These recommendations cover the amount of quota in the IMF, the form of payment of the subscription, and other customary terms and conditions of membership. After the board of governors has adopted the membership Resolution, the applicant state needs to take the legal steps required under its own law to enable it to sign the IMF’s Articles of Agreement and to fulfill the obligations of IMF membership.
Similarly, any member country can withdraw from the Fund, although that is rare. For example, in April 2007, the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, announced the expulsion of the World Bank representative in the country. A few days later, at the end of April, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced that the country would withdraw from the IMF and the World Bank. Chavez dubbed both organizations as “the tools of the empire” that “serve the interests of the North. As of June 2009, both countries remain as members of both organizations. The government of Venezuela was forced to back down because a withdrawal would have triggered default clauses in the country’s sovereign bonds.
A member’s quota in the IMF determines the amount of its subscription, its voting weight, its access to IMF financing, and its allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). A member state cannot unilaterally increase its quota—increases must be approved by the Executive Board of IMF and are linked to formulas that include many variables such as the size of a country in the world economy. For example, in 2001, the People’s Republic of China was prevented from increasing its quota as high as it wished, ensuring it remained at the level of the smallest G7 economy (Canada).
In September 2005 the IMF’s member countries agreed to the first round of ad hoc quota increases for four countries, including China[citation needed]. On March 28, 2008, the IMF’s executive board ended a period of extensive discussion and negotiation over a major package of reforms to enhance the institution's governance that would shift quota and voting shares from advanced to emerging markets and developing countries. Under existing arrangements, the industrialized countries(including Mexico) hold 57 per cent of the IMF votes. But the financial crisis has tilted control away from heavily indebted mature economies, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, in favour of the fast-growing, cash-rich, so-called BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.
Since the United States has by far the largest share of votes (approx. 17 percent) amongst IMF members (see table below), it has little to lose relative to European nations. At the 2009 G-20 Pittsburgh summit, the U.S. raised the possibility that some European countries would reduce their votes in favour of increasing the votes for emerging economies. However, both France and Britain were particularly reluctant as an increase in China’s votes would mean China now has more votes than the UK and France. At a subsequent IMF meeting in Istanbul, the same month as the Pittsburgh Summit, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn then highlighted that “If we don’t correct them, we’ll have the recipe for the next major crisis. Citing the seriousness of the issue to be tackled.
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