IMF/WB DUTCH CONSTITUENCY MEETING IN YEREVAN WAS PRODUCTIVE

Noyan Tapan
Jun 19 2006

YEREVAN, JUNE 19, NOYAN TAPAN. The IMF/WB Dutch Constituency meeting
held in Yerevan on June 17-18 was a productive one. Gerrit Zalm,
Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister of the Netherlands, stated
this during a press conference to summarize the Yerevan meeting.

The IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato, the finance ministers and
chairmen of the central banks of the Netherlands, Armenia, Georgia,
Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Israel,
Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as more than 70 other officials
from these countries, IMF and WB participated in the meeting.

Issues related to the IMF/WB annual meeting to be held in Singapour
this year were dicussed at the meeting, particularly, the issue of
quotas of IMF member states. Representtaives of the financial secors
of the member states made the following reports: "Current Events in
WB and IMF", "Strategic Review of the IMF", "Fiscal Space: Domestic
Resource Mobilization", "Current Account Imbalancies in Transition:
Vulnerabilities and Policies", "Productivity Growth, Job Creation
and Demograthic Change: How are Countries of the Dutch Constituency
Doing?".

According to the IMF Executive Director Jeroen Kremers, the population
of the Dutch Constituency member states is 125 mln, which is almost
equal to Russia’s polulation. The total quaota of the member states
is 5%, which is twice as much as that of Russia.

In the opinion of G. Zalm, Armenia has excellently organized both
the meeting and the cultural and tourism program for the meeting
participants.

According to him, the next meeting of the IMF/WB Dutch Constituency
will be held in Moldova in 2007.