STOCKHOLM (Reuters) Fri Oct 23, 2009 6:15am GM - Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros suggested on Thursday that European nations offer some of their International Monetary Fund resources to poor countries, which could provide them as much as $100 billion in aid.Such a move would make up for the projected drop in development aid levels from rich donor countries whose budgets have been squeezed by the global financial crisis.
Soros proposed European countries use the recent allocation of IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), approved in April as part of efforts to boost global liquidity by some $250 billion, to help poor countries.
Each SDR allocation is based on a country's IMF quota, or subscription, and goes into members' foreign exchange reserves. To turn SDRs into hard currency, an IMF member must reach an agreement with another member to buy the SDRs.
Soros said the IMF could use its gold reserves to pay the interest that is normally due on SDRs that are converted into hard currency.
"The European countries have no particular use for their Special Drawing Rights," Soros told the European Development Days 2009 conference in Stockholm. "According to a resolution already on the books, gold reserves are to be used for the benefit of the least developed countries."
The IMF agreed in September to sell 403 tonnes of its gold stockpile to increase resources to lend to poorer member countries and to put its own finances on more solid footing.....
