A senior Chinese official on Sunday called for an accelerated timetable for the Voice and Participation reform of World Bank, urging all parties concerned should demonstrate necessary political dimensions.

"We expect that all member countries demonstrate their political will in advancing the reform, in order to further strengthen the Bank's capacity of effectively fulfilling its development mandate in the new era," said Li Yong, vice minister of finance of China, in a statement at the 79th Development Committee of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

China's Vice Finance Minister Li Yong attends the semi-annual session of the Joint Development Committee of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in Washington, the U.S., on April 26, 2009. The session was convened as the spring session of the two institutions entered its second day. (Xinhua/Zhang Yan)

"Achieving parity voting power between developing and transition countries (DTC) on the one hand and developed countries on the other hand should be the ultimate and overarching target of the Voice and Participation reform," he said.

"Based on this, we are willing to actively participate in discussions on all options for reforming shareholding structure and voting mechanism," said the vice minister.

He noted that selection process of the head of the World Bank "should truly reflect the demand of the times, represent a modern approach to governance and adhere to the open, competitive, and merit-based principles."

The reform of the selection process is to "make the Bank a real leader and role model in institutional governance as a global development bank," he said.

Li also urged the international community to work together to "prevent the current crisis from escalating into a development crisis."

"The current financial crisis has impeded the poverty reduction in most developing countries and threatened realization of MDGs on time," he stressed. "Developing countries are victims of the crisis."

Strengthening support for developing countries is not only an obligation of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other international financial institutions (IFI) within their development mandate, but also an imperative to stabilize the global economy, he said.

The recent G20 London Summit has provided directions for IFIs' responses to the crisis, said the Chinese senior official, urging the World Bank and other IFIs to strengthen their roles in helping developing countries.

Meanwhile, Li also said that it is important to reform the current international monetary system.

"Flawed international monetary system is the institutional root-cause of the crisis, and a major defect in the current international economic governance structure," said the vice minister.

"Therefore, we should improve the regulatory mechanism for reserve currency issuance, maintain the relative stability of the exchange rates of major reserve currencies, and promote a diverse and sound international currency system," he stressed.

The Development Committee was established in October 1974 to advise the Boards of Governors of the Bank and the IMF on critical development issues and on the financial resources required to promote economic development in developing countries.

The joint committee is composed of 24 ministers or governors of central banks from both rich and poor countries, representing the entire membership of the two international financial institutions. The committee usually meets twice a year.

(Xinhua News Agency April 27, 2009)