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Text 1.
IMF Means International Monetary Fund
The purpose of the International Monetary Fund is to promote international monetary cooperation through a permanent institution that provides the machinery for consultation and collaboration on international monetary problems. Specifically, the function of the IMF is to facilitate the expansion and balanced growth of international trade, to promote orderly and stable foreign currency exchange markets, and to contribute to balance of payments adjustment. To further these objectives, the IMF monitors members’ macroeconomic policies, makes financial resources available to them in times of balance of payments difficulties, and provides them with technical assistance in a number of areas.
Much of the IMF’s work is centered on annual consultations with each member country to ensure that its national policies in the area of economic growth, price stability, financial conditions, and exchange rates take into account their consequences for the world economy and avoid unfair exchange policies.
To ensure compliance with these basic tenets, the Fund is empowered to exercise firm surveillance over the exchange rate policies of member countries.
History
The IMF’s charter, embodied in the Articles of Agreement, was agreed upon at the International Monetary and Financial Conference held at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944. In December 1945 the required number of countries had ratified the agreements, and in March 1946 the first meeting of the Board of Governors was held. The IMF commenced operations on March 1, 1947, at its headquarters in Washington, D. C. Other milestones in the history of the IMF include:
- May 1948, first drawing of foreign exchange by a member country;
- January 1962, adoption of the general agreements to borrow (GAB), which constituted an important supplement to the IMF’s financial resources;
- February 1963, establishment of the compensatory financing facility, designed to assist countries that experience a temporary shortfall in export earnings;
- June 1969, inception of the buffer stock financing facility, which can be used to finance commodity stockpiles;
- July 1969, adoption of the first amendment to the Articles of Agreement, providing for the allocation of special drawing rights (SDRs) to member countries, with the first allocation of SDRs made on January 1, 1970;
- September 1974, implementation of the extended fund facility, which provides medium-term assistance to member countries seeking to overcome structural balance of payments problems;
- April 1975, establishment of an oil facility to help oil-importing countries finance the increase in petroleum prices;
- February 1976, establishment of the Trust Fund, finded by revenues from gold sales, to aid developing countries with low-interest assistance;
- August 1977, establishment of the supplementary financing facility to make additional resources available to member countries requiring balance of payments financing in larger amounts and for longer periods;
- April 1978, adoption of the second amendment to the articles providing for liberalized exchange arrangements, the legalization of floating exchange rates, steps designed to eliminate the role of gold in the international monetary system, and enunciation of the goal to make the SDR the central international monetary reserve asset;
- March 1986, establishment of a structural adjustment facility to provide balance of payments assistance to qualifying members in support of macroeconomic and structural adjustment programs;
- December 1987, the establishment of the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Trust to provide loans on concessional terms to eligible members to support programs to strengthen substantially and in a sustainable manner their balance of payment position;
- August 1988, expansion of the compensatory financing facility to include a contingency financing element under which additional financing may be provided to support adjustment programs that might be thrown off track by adverse exogenous developments.
Vocabulary
Permanent –постоянный to ratify -ратифицировать
Machinery –оборудование, механизм to commence -приступать
Collaboration –сотрудничество milestones –вехи
To facilitate –способствовать shortfall –недостаток
To monitor –наблюдать, контролировать inception –открытие,
основание
Annual –ежегодный stockpiles –запасы
To avoid –избегать, остерегаться amendment –поправка
Tenet –основополагающий принцип to seek –искать
Serveillance –патрулирование enunciation –изложение
Supplementary –дополнительный contingency –возможность
Embodied -воплощенный, содержа-
щийся в чем-л.
exogenous –экзогенный
General understanding:
1) What is the function of International Monetary Fund?
2) What do IMF monitor’s members do?
3) What are the daily affairs of IMF?
4) When was IMF established?
5) What are the most important milestones in the history of IMF?
I. Translate into Russian:
1) The IMF’s charter was agreed upon at the International Monetary and Financial Conference.
2) Inception of the buffer stock financing facility, which can be used to finance commodity stockpiles.
3) Adoption of the first amendment to the Articles of Agreement, providing for the allocation of special drawing rights (SDRs) to member countries.
4) Establishment of the supplementary financing facility to make additional resources available to member countries.
5) Expansion of the compensatory financing element under which additional financing may be provided to support adjustment programs.
II. What do the following abbreviations mean:
a) IMF
b) GAB
c) Washington D. C.
d) SDR
Text 2.
IMF’s Anatomy
As of December 1991 the IMF was composed of 156 member countries; in addition, a number of republics of the former U. S. S. R. Were in the process of joining the organisation. Each member is represented by a governor on the IMF’s Board of Governors, most of who are ministers of finance, presidents of the country’s central bank, or persons of similar rank. Virtually all day-to-day policy decisions are delegated to the Executive Board, which is made up of 22 representatives of the member countries. The Executive Board is presided over by the managing director, elected for a 5-year term, who is also chief of staff of the IMF.
Each member has a quota, which is based on a complex formula that takes account of the country’s size and its general importance in world trade and finance. The quota determines the amount of financial resources the member has to make available to the IMF (subscription) and its access to the Fund’s facilities, its entitlement to SDR allocations, as well as its voting power. Part of each member’s subscription is paid in reserve assets, and the remainder in the member’s own currency.
Operations
IMF member countries may utilize the Fund’s resources if they find themselves in balance of payments difficulties. Drawings normally will be in the context of policy measures –an adjustment program- intended to correct the balance of payments position and are linked to progress under that program. Technically, use of the Fund’s resources takes the form of a member using its own currency to purchase other currencies (or SDRs) held by the IMF. Drawings on the Fund’s resources that do not exceed 25 percent of the member’s quota normally require that the member make a reasonable effort to overcome its balance of payments problem. Purchases beyond that amount –i. e., drawings in the so –called upper credit tranches –usually are made in the context of an adjustment program. Repayments to the IMF are normally to be made within 3 to 5, but under the extended facility the country may have up to 10 years to repay the financing provided by the Fund.
Vocabulary
Rank -ранг
To preside -председательствовать
Quota -квота
To entitle -давать право кому-л.
Remainder -остаток
To correct -корректировать, исправлять
To link -соединять
Reasonable effort -разумное усилие
Tranche -транш, порция
General understanding:
1. What countries was IMF composed of on December 1991?
2. Who are the governors of IMF’s Board of Governors?
3. Who presides over Executive Board?
4. How is the managing director elected?
5. What importance has “quota” for the members of IMF?
6. What operations could be carried out through IMF?
7. How have the total subscriptions changed over time?
I. Explain the role (meaning) and functions of the following. Write 2 sentences with each one:
1) Member countries
2) Board of Governors
3) Executive board
4) Managing director
5) Quota
II. Which of the following is true:
1) IMF is composed of 22 Governors.
2) Executive board makes all decisions on the Republics of former USSR.
3) The quota determines the amount of financial resources the member has to make available to the IMF.
4) IMF member countries may utilize the Fund’s resources.
5) Borrowing countries have to pay the loans back within 3-5 years.
Text 3.
World Bank
The World Bank is the world’s foremost intergovernmental organization concerned with the external financing of the economic growth of developing countries. The official title of the institution is the International Bank Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).
Before recommending a Bank loan, the staff of the Bank must be reasonably satisfied that the productivity of the borrowing country will be increased and that the prospects for repayment are good. A country must be judged creditworthy. Engineering investigations are frequently carried out to determine the probable relation of a proposed project to benefits and costs. Increasingly, however, the Bank has shifted somewhat away from project landing (e. g., for a dam or a highway or a port); it has become concerned with education and other human services, the environment, and, through structural adjustment loans, the modification of governmental policies that are thought to have impeded long-run growth. The bank has also paid increasing attention to the evaluation of previous lending. Recently, moreover, it has acceded to the requests of the American secretary of the treasury to help to ease the huge, outstanding, largerly commercial bank debt.
Voting power in the Bank (as well as in the Fund) is determined by the size of each member nation’s subscription. Subscriptions, in turn, are based on a formula that takes into account such variables as the value of each nation’ foreign trade and its total output. Ultimate power, through weighted voting, rests with the Board of Governors of the Bank (and the Fund). The governors meet annually in September. The day-to-day affairs of the bank are determined, however, by executive directors who live permanently in Washington D.C. they hire a president of the Bank is an American, usually a banker, proposed by the president of the United States.
Because of the size of their subscriptions, five nations –the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and France –are entitled to appoint executive directors; the remaining seventeen directors are elected by some combination of the votes of the other nations. There are 156 member nations, but, with the independence of the Baltic states and the devolution of the Soviet Union into separate republics, the membership could increase to over 170, thereby including all the independent nations in the world.
The Soviet Union was one of the forty –four governments whose representatives signed the original Bretton Woods agreements, but along with the other members of the Warsaw Pact, it chose not to join the Bank or the Fund when these organisation were formally incorporated in 1946. (Poland and Czechoslovakia joined the Bank and the Fund initially but withdrew when the cold war began in earnest and a loan to Poland was blocked by the United States)
World Bank Group
In 1954, an international Finance Corporation was established to supplement the World Bank by participating in equity financing in member countries, and in 1960, a third organization, the International Development Association (IDA), was created. These three organisations constitute the World Bank Group. The IDA has the same officers and staff as the World Bank, but its separate charter enables it to offer loans to low –income member countries repayable at 0.75 percent interest over 50 years (including 10 years’ grace).
Soft or concessionary assistance is made possible by contributions to (replenishments of) the IDA by the governments of high –income (industrial0 countries. The management of the World Bank Group is thus enabled to offer rates of interest and loan maturities which take into account the nature of the projects financed and the presumed ability of borrowing governments to service their debt. The initial capitalization of IDA for the years 1960 to 1964 was less than $ 1 billion in hard currencies. By 1992, the ninth replenishment for 3 years will be over $ 11 billion.
Today, the World Bank Group is afar cry from what it was when the World Bank began in 1946 under President Eugene Meyer –with three floors of rented office space at 1818 H Street NW and a few dozen employees. Even in the final days of the presidency of George Woods, in 1968, the group had fewer than 1500 employees and four buildings. As of August 31, 1991, however, on the eve of the accession to the presidency of Lewis Preston, former chairman of the board of J. P. Morgan & Co., the World Bank Group had 3 senior vice presidents, 14 vice presidents, and 6500 employees scattered through 18 separate buildings in Washington, D. C.; 2 large offices in Paris and Tokyo; and 50 regional offices.
The world Bank Group has had a significant positive effect on the flow of capital to the poorer countries of the world, both directly and indirectly, and knowledge of Third World problems has increased enormously. Still, the record of growth is spotty. In much of East Asia, per capita income is rising rapidly, but in Africa south of the Sahara, in South Asia, and in much of Latin America, the growth of per capita income has been discouragingly slow.
Vocabulary
Foremost intergovernmental -наиболее межправительственный
Prospects for repayment -перспективы выплаты долга
To be carried out -производиться, осуществляться
Dam -дамба, плотина
Accede -удовлетворять, соглашаться
Subscription -подписка
To take into account -принимать в расчет
Day-to-day affairs -повседневные дела
To hire - нанимать
To appoint -назначать
To join -присоединять(ся)
To supplement -добавка, приложение
Equity -справедливость
To constitute -являться, составлять
To grace -удостаивать
Concessionary -льготный
Replenishments -пополнения
A far cry -абсолютно другая вещь
Dozen -дюжина
Eve of the accession -накануне прихода к власти
To be scattered - быть разбросанным
Enormously -чрезвычайно
Spotty -подпорченный
General Understanding
1. What is World Bank?
2. What is the procedure of getting a loan from the World Bank?
3. What are the latest trends in the policy of the World Bank?
4. How is the voting power determined?
5. What are the largest subscribers of the World Bank?
I. Define the following:
1. Intergovernmental organization
2. Borrowing country
3. Prospects for repayment
4. Member’s subscription
5. Day-to-day affairs
6. Concessionary assistance
7. Third World
II. Translate into Russian:
1. The official title of the institution is the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).
2. A country must be judged creditworthy.
3. They hire a president, who, in turn, hires a staff.
4. The Soviet Union was one of the forty-four governments whose representatives signed the original Bretton Woods agreements.
5. The IDA has the same officers and staff as the World Bank.
6. Today, the World Bank Group is a far cry from what it was when the World Bank began in 1946 under President Eugene Meyer –with three floors of rented office space at 1818 H Street NW and a few dozen employees.
III. Explain the abbreviations. Write sentences with each:
1. IBRD
2. IDA