Speech

Closing Remarks by Rodrigo de Rato, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, at the Joint Annual Discussion

October 22, 2007

Mr. Chairman, I want to take this opportunity to thank you all, the Governors and the guests, for your work over this long weekend. This is, once again, a very important meeting of the two institutions and one in which many things have been decided and into which a lot of work has been put, both before the meetings and during the meetings.

The Annual Meetings are a once a year chance for policymakers to discuss issues, not only in a multilateral setting but also in bilateral meetings with us and with others. This makes the Annual Meetings of the Bretton Woods Institutions not only a unique occasion, but also a great opportunity to send to the world certain messages regarding the capacity of countries to face the challenges of a global economy.

From the point of view of the Fund, this meeting also has been a very important step in our reform program. We had a very intense and successful working day on Saturday in the IMFC. And I am very encouraged to see that consensus is building up on very difficult reforms in which everybody has to make an important effort. I think that when today Governor Kane, speaking on behalf of the African Caucus, reminded all of us that "we need to stress the need for a give-and-take spirit in reaching a consensus," he defined very well what we have been doing up to now and certainly what we will need to be doing over the next 12 months.

These meetings are also traditionally an occasion to review the global economy and also the different regional economies. This is a year in which there is more than usual uncertainty about global economic prospects. In this context, both the official meetings and also the seminars that have been held around these meetings have been extremely useful. Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the Per Jacobsson Lecture, given by Alan Greenspan, which I think was very illuminating for all of us.

There have been many important speeches made today. Let me just mention two. Governor Kwon of Korea proposed some very useful principles for financial sector reform that I think all of us should bear in mind. And Governor Endo of Japan suggested that we should focus our surveillance on a dynamic analysis of the risk of financial crises over the medium term. Their speeches are emblematic of the quality of the interventions that we have had during the day.

Let me now join Bob Zoellick in thanking you, the Governors, and also many other people. I want to thank the United States Governor and the authorities of the United States and Washington, DC, who have been the hosts of three of my four Annual Meetings as Managing Director. I am very grateful for the opportunity to have the meetings here. I would also like to thank the Police Department of the District of Colombia, which has kept us safe, and the people of Washington who have invited us to their city and-I think we all realize-have endured some hardship because of our presence here in terms of traffic and other disturbances.

I also want to thank you Mr. Chairman, and the Bank and the Fund Secretaries, for your direction of these meetings, and my colleague, Bob Zoellick, for his work with me over the last few days, and over these past few months.

Hundreds of people make these meetings possible. Many work around the Managing Director and the President, and many others work at all levels in these two important institutions. They are the ones who prepare briefs that are of excellent quality, prepare schedules, organize outreach, and translate our words, as Bob Zoellick mentioned.

And finally, I would like to thank especially the people who make all of this possible, the staff of the Bank-Fund Conferences Office and Joint Secretariat. We don't have to teach these people Bank-Fund collaboration because they are at the heart of it, and they do an excellent job. Today when we are all leaving the meetings and probably taking some rest, they are starting to prepare for next year's meetings, as they began to prepare for these meetings immediately after last year's meetings in Singapore. I think that the success of these meetings is very much in the hands of these very able colleagues and I want to thank them all.

And of course, I want to thank you all again, and wish you all a very safe journey home.