President calls for IMF to regulate markets 01/10/2007 00:00

1 October 2007

Berlin (dpa) - German President Horst Koehler called Monday for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to be given regulatory power over world financial markets as an independent, supranational body.

Giving his Berlin Address, a high point of the German presidential year, the former IMF managing director said the world needed "an independent, competent institution with responsibility beyond national borders for the stability of the international financial system."

He called for the seats held by European nations on the IMF board of governors to be consolidated into a single European Union seat.

"Based on my experience, that would actually increase EU influence," said Koehler, 64, who was recalled from Washington to Germany to take on the largely ceremonial role of president in 2004.

The speech, an annual reflection on the state of Germany and the world, focussed on the benefits of globalization.

"Even if there is more to do, and there is much more to do, globalisation has brought vast progress in the poor countries," Koehler told an audience gathered in a former pump building renovated as a Berlin monument to industry.

He said the single most important way to help poor nations was to give them improved access to markets in industrialized nations.

DPA

Subject: German news