Press Release No. 12/146

Press Release: Statement by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde on Pledges by Australia, Korea, Singapore and the United Kingdom to Increase IMF Resources by About US$41 Billion

April 20, 2012

Ms. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued the following statement today:

“I warmly welcome fresh commitments from Australia, Korea, Singapore and the United Kingdom to provide substantial contributions to increasing Fund resources by a combined total of about US$41 billion. These bring to at least US$357 billion the additional commitments to IMF resources from the cooperative effort under way to ensure adequate Fund resources. This broad-based response to our request for additional resources will help strengthen global economic and financial stability in the interests of all our members.

“These commitments—US$7 billion from Australia; US$15 billion from Korea; US$4 billion from Singapore; and about US$15 billion from the United Kingdom—demonstrate these countries’ continued support for the Fund and its entire membership in the spirit of multilateralism.

“I am very encouraged by this further demonstration of our membership’s strong support for the Fund, and I look forward to further commitments from our broader membership.”

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Total commitments so far of over US$357 billion to the current effort to increase Fund resources consist of pledges from the Euro Area of €150 billion (about US$200 billion); Japan of US$60 billion; Korea of US$15 billion; the United Kingdom of about US$15 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); Australia of US$7 billion; Denmark’s Nationalbank of €5.3 billion (about US$7.0 billion); US$4 billion from Singapore; and pledges from several other countries including Switzerland.