Strategic Panorama 2009 - 2010 - IEEE

The global recession and its impact on international economic relations
Chart 1: IMF quota and voting shares (%) before and after the reform
of 2006-2008 (20 countries with the largest percentage of votes, all
above 1%)
Quota share
before reform
Voting share
before reform
Quota share
after reform
Voting share
after reform
USA 17.380% 17.023% 17.674% 16.732%
Japan 6.228% 6.108% 6.558% 6.227%
Germany 6.086% 5.968% 6.112% 5.805%
France 5.024% 4.929% 4.506% 4.288%
UK 5.024% 4.929% 4.506% 4.506%
China 2.980% 2.928% 3.989% 3.799%
Italy 3.301% 3.242% 3.307% 3.155%
Saudi Arabia 3.268% 3.210% 2.931% 2.800%
Canada 2.980% 2.928% 2.672% 2.555%
Russia 2.782% 2.734% 2.495% 2.387%
Netherlands 2.415% 2.375% 2.166% 2.077%
Belgium 2.155% 2.120% 1.932% 1.856%
India 1.945% 1.916% 2.443% 2.338%
Switzerland 1.618% 1.595% 1.451% 1.401%
Australia 1.514% 1.494% 1.358% 1.313%
Mexico 1.210% 1.196% 1.521% 1.467%
Spain 1.426% 1.408% 1.686% 1.623%
Brazil 1.420% 1.402% 1.783% 1.715%
Korea 0.764% 0.760% 1.413% 1.365%
Venezuela 1.244% 1.229% 1.116% 1.084%
Source: IMF.
However, it may also be affirmed that the reform does not go far
enough as it generates changes that are too small and continue to allow
the advanced countries to form coalitions to maintain wide majorities in key
decisions, as well as not giving enough of a say to the poorest countries.
In this respect it is true that, owing to the inherent difficulties in achieving
greater agreement on the reform of the formula for calculating quotas, the
debate on incorporating the population factor (even with a low weighting)
was postponed, as was the possibility of according even greater weight
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