Published: 27th Apr, 2020
India will not support a general allocation of new ‘Special Drawing Rights’ by the International Monetary Fund as it might not be effective in easing coronavirus-driven financial pressure.
Context
India will not support a general allocation of new ‘Special Drawing Rights’ by the International Monetary Fund as it might not be effective in easing coronavirus-driven financial pressure.
About
- The Special Drawing Rights (SDR) is an international reserve asset, created by the International Monetary Fund in 1969 to supplement its member countries’ official reserves.
- The SDR serves as the unit of account of the IMF and some other international organizations.
- The SDR is neither a currency nor a claim on the IMF. Rather, it is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of IMF members. SDRs can be exchanged for these currencies.
- The value of the SDR is based on a basket of five currencies:
- the U.S. dollar
- the euro
- the Chinese renminbi
- the Japanese yen
- the British pound sterling
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The SDR interest rate (SDRi):
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Background:
- The SDR was created as a supplementary international reserve asset in the context of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system.
- The collapse of Bretton Woods system in 1973 and the shift of major currencies to floating exchange rate regimes lessened the reliance on the SDR as a global reserve asset.
- Nonetheless, SDR allocations can play a role in providing liquidity and supplementing member countries’ official reserves, as was the case amid the global financial crisis.
Why India is opposing SDR allocation?
- The new SDR allocation would provide all 189 members with new foreign exchange reserves with no conditions.
- Such a major liquidity injection could produce potentially costly side-effects if countries used the funds for “extraneous” purposes.
- In the current context of illiquidity and flights to cash, the efficacy of an SDR allocation is not certain.
- Currently, most countries rely on national reserves as a first line of defense.
- Consequently, extraneous demands for these reserves, not related to domestic monetary and financial stability, would be costly, and hence cannot be supported.
About IMF:
- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was conceived in July 1944 at the United Nations Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire, United States.
- The IMF promotes international financial stability and monetary cooperation.
- It also facilitates international trade, promotes employment and sustainable economic growth, and helps to reduce global poverty.
- The IMF is governed by and accountable to its 189 member countries. It is accountable to its member country governments.
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