## Selected Boxes from _file11pdf

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---

### Box 1 — The IMF’s Response to the Asian Crisis

- Commitments and Disbursements (as of July 23, 1998)
  - Commitments of the International Community and Disbursements of the IMF in Response to the Asian Crisis, as of July 23, 1998 (Billions of U.S. dollars)
  - Table text as presented in source:
    - Commitments
      - IMF
      - __________________________________________________
      - CountryIMFMultilateral
      - 2
      - Bilateral
      - 3
      - TotalDisbursements
    - Indonesia11.210.021.1
      - 4
      - 42.35.0
    - Korea20.914.023.358.217.0
    - Thailand 4.0 2.710.5 17.22.8
    - Total36.126.754.9
      - 4
      - 117.724.8
  - Footnotes (verbatim):
    - 1 IMF commitments to the Philippines are not included.
    - 2 World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
    - 3 Bilateral contributions to Indonesia and Korea were a contingent second line of defense. 
    - 4 Estimate; amount of new commitments not finalized as of July 23, 1998.

- IMF Monitoring Instruments (types and uses)
  - Stand-By Arrangements and IMF-supported programs
    - Provide an explicit indication that the country is cooperating with the IMF and implementing specified policies, thereby boosting confidence in them.
    - Assure the country that IMF resources will be available if needed and provided the agreed conditions are met.
  - Informal Staff-Monitored Programs
    - IMF staff monitor the country’s economic program and regularly discuss progress under that program with the authorities; however, there is no formal IMF endorsement of the member’s policies.
  - Enhanced Surveillance
    - This also does not constitute formal IMF endorsement of a member’s economic policies.
    - Emphasis is on close and formal monitoring by the IMF.
    - The procedure was initially established to facilitate debt-rescheduling arrangements with commercial banks but has been used occasionally in other situations.
  - Role of intensified monitoring
    - In a few cases, the intensified monitoring described above has been a prelude to an IMF-supported adjustment program.
    - More often, monitoring provides the authorities with a framework to reassure interested third parties, such as donors, creditors, or financial markets.

- Lessons for Surveillance from the Asian Crisis (summary of Executive Board review, March 1998)
  - General observations
    - The IMF’s performance in identifying emerging tensions in crisis-affected countries at an early stage had been mixed.
    - In the case of Thailand, the IMF had expressed serious concerns about economic developments beginning in 1996—concerns conveyed to the authorities in several ways, including through confidential contacts at the highest level.
    - In other cases in Asia, the IMF—while having identified critical weaknesses, particularly in the financial sector—had been taken by surprise, owing in part to the lack of access to requisite information and also to an inability to see the full consequences of the combination of structural weaknesses in the economy and contagion effects.
    - In particular, in the case of Korea, the IMF had not attached sufficient urgency to the financial tensions that had begun developing in early 1997.
    - With hindsight it was clear that the affected countries’ vulnerabilities had been underestimated, including by the markets.
    - Some other emerging market economies had taken timely and sustained policy measures in the face of market pressures and had been able to fend off spreading turmoil successfully; in those cases, close IMF surveillance had been helpful.
    - Some Directors stressed that it was unrealistic to expect IMF surveillance to detect all problems early and prevent all crises, and that the contagion effects of the crisis in Thailand were, to a large extent, unpredictable.
    - Directors encouraged the staff, in exercising surveillance, to place increased emphasis on the risks of contagion effects.
  - Follow-up actions agreed
    - The experience of the past nine months would be used to review the design and implementation of IMF-supported programs; the role of the IMF and other official financing for these programs; collaboration between the IMF and other international institutions, especially the World Bank; the role of the private sector in crisis situations; and the IMF’s policy on public information.
    - A review of the experience with IMF programs in the Asian crisis countries was to be undertaken before the October 1998 Annual Meetings to address questions of program orientation and design, implementation, and, to the extent possible, early program results.
    - The experience with the Asian crisis countries would also be examined in 1998/99 as part of the world economic outlook exercise and in the context of the annual report on international capital markets.
    - Lessons from the Asian experience would be reflected in several papers addressing various aspects of strengthening the architecture of the international monetary system, focusing on the availability and the dissemination of economic data, transparency in members’ policies and in IMF surveillance, and the role of international standards in assessing countries’ policies and practices.
    - There would be further Board discussion on establishing appropriate incentives for international financial flows by involving the private sector in forestalling or resolving financial crises.
    - The IMF would be incorporating lessons from the Asian crisis in its continuing work on orderly and appropriately sequenced capital account liberalization.
    - The experience with World Bank–IMF collaboration, notably in the area of financial sector reform, would be reviewed with the aim of identifying areas with scope for improvement.

- Selected procedural and policy implications highlighted
  - Emphasize timely availability of accurate information to improve surveillance effectiveness.
  - Strengthen provision of data to the IMF and to the public, including through the Special Data Dissemination Standard and related monitoring.
  - Pay particular attention to compiling timely and accurate data on short-term external debt and other supplementary data (reserve-related liabilities, central bank derivative transactions, private sector external debt, prudential-type bank indicators).
  - Provide technical assistance where countries are unable to collect required data.
  - Increase focus on contagion risks in IMF surveillance.
  - Review IMF program design, implementation, collaboration with other institutions, and role of the private sector in crisis prevention and resolution.

*Box 1 text extracted from the IMF Annual Report 1998 PDF content unit: _file11pdf - Box 1*

### Box 5 — Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency: Declaration on Principles

- Overview
  - The Code’s main provisions are as follows:

- Clarity of Roles and Responsibilities
  - The government sector should be clearly distinguished from the rest of the economy, and policy and management roles within government should be well defined.
  - There should be a clear legal and administrative framework for fiscal management.

- Public Availability of Information
  - The public should be provided with full information on the past, current, and projected fiscal activity of government.
  - A public commitment should be made to timely publication of fiscal information.

- Open Budget Preparation, Execution, and Reporting
  - Budget documentation should specify fiscal policy objectives, the macroeconomic framework, the policy basis for the budget, and identifiable major fiscal risks.
  - Budget estimates should be classified and presented in a way that facilitates policy analysis and promotes accountability.
  - Procedures for the execution and monitoring of approved expenditures should be clearly specified.
  - Fiscal reporting should be timely, comprehensive, and reliable and identify deviations from the budget.

- Independent Assurances of Integrity
  - The integrity of fiscal information should be subject to public and independent scrutiny.

*Source: _file11pdf - Box 5*

### Box 9 — Group Travel by Executive Directors

- Purpose and Rationale
  - Travel by a group of Executive Directors was initiated to help broaden Directors’ understanding of the economic problems and policies in individual member countries, with a view to enhancing their contribution to Board discussion of member country policies.

- Trips Undertaken
  - A group of Directors traveled to Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, and Mali in February 1998.
  - Previous group trips were to Egypt, Jordan, and the Republic of Yemen in June 1996; and to Georgia, Hungary, and Ukraine in October 1996.

- Board Review and Guidance
  - In reviewing the trial program of group travel by Executive Directors in June 1997, the Board agreed that the number of annual trips should be flexible, but the aim would normally be for twotrips a year, each to two or three countries.
  - Many Directors thought the focus should be on program and intensive-surveillance countries.
  - Participation by a Director (or Directors) from a program country in a group visit would be useful.
  - Directors favored maintaining flexibility in the selection process.

*Source: Box 9, _file11pdf - Box 9.*

### Box 14 — IMF Institute and Regional Institutions; Borrowing; Access Policy and Limits on Use of IMF Resources

- IMF Institute and Regional Institutions
  - Europe
    - The IMF, in collaboration with the World Bank and certain other international institutions, has established the Joint Vienna Institute (JVI) to provide training to officials of former centrally planned economies that are in transition to market-based systems.
    - In addition to a comprehensive course in applied market economics jointly presented by all sponsoring organizations, the IMF Institute and other IMF departments offer an extensive seminar program covering macroeconomic analysis and policy, banking supervision, payment systems, monetary and exchange operations, fiscal policy, public expenditure management, value-added taxes, social safety nets, financial sector law, and macroeconomic statistics.
    - Recently the Board extended the IMF’s support for the JVI for another five years.
  - Capacity building in Africa
    - The Institute has a long-standing cooperative relationship with the regional training institutions in Francophone Africa, namely, the training centers of the Central Bank of West African States (West African Training Center for Banking Studies—COFEB) and the Bank of Central African States.
    - The Institute offers a yearly regional course on Financial Programming and Policies or External Sector Policies, as well as periodic lecturing assistance to the centers.
    - The regional courses benefit from cofinancing from the United Nations Development Programme and the European Union.
    - The Institute emphasizes “capacity building” by training trainers, both in financial macroeconomics and in managerial fields linked to teaching.
    - To respond to the growing need for training in Africa, the Institute helped establish in 1997 the nine-member Macroeconomic and Financial Management Institute of Eastern and Southern Africa (MEFMI) in Zimbabwe and the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) in Nigeria.
  - Asia
    - Effective May 4, 1998, the IMF-Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI) commenced the offering of training on policy-related economics to selected government officials, mainly from developing countries in the Asia and the Pacific region.
    - In 1998/99, 13 courses and seminars are scheduled on macroeconomic adjustment and reform policies, financial programming, the problems of transition economies, monetary and exchange operations, public finance, banking supervision, and macroeconomic statistics.
    - The STI is viewed as a precursor to similar regional training centers in other parts of the world.
  - South-East Asian Central Banks Research and Training Center (SEACEN)
    - Relations between the IMF Institute and SEACEN (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) developed in the 1970s when the Institute began to send senior staff to assist SEACEN in the formulation of its training program.
    - Since the early 1980s, the Institute has provided lecturing assistance to SEACEN and coordinated lecturing assistance from other IMF departments, and in the early 1990s began to conduct joint courses.
  - The Arab Monetary Fund
    - The IMF Institute has maintained a close relationship with the training branch of the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), since its inception in 1988.
    - The Institute has regularly provided the EPI with lecturing assistance in connection with the AMF course on Macroeconomic Management and participated in the AMF course on External Sector Management, first offered in March 1995.
    - Cooperation includes joint courses and seminars and participation by Institute staff in AMF-sponsored seminars.
  - Other regional cooperation
    - The Institute has been providing lecturing assistance for courses organized by the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies for several years.
    - It has been cooperating with the Islamic Development Bank on regional training courses since 1994.
    - The Institute conducted its first cooperative training venture with the Asian Development Bank in 1995.

- Borrowing
  - General
    - The IMF is a quota-based institution. At the same time, it has authority under its Articles of Agreement to borrow to provide temporary supplements to its usable quota resources, if needed.
  - General Arrangements to Borrow (GAB)
    - During the financial year, the IMF renewed the General Arrangements to Borrow (GAB) for a further five-year period from December 26, 1998.
    - The GAB is a set of arrangements under which 11 industrial countries or their central banks have agreed to provide resources to the IMF to forestall or cope with an impairment of the international monetary system.
    - The amount potentially available under the GAB is SDR17 billion, with an additional SDR 1.5 billion available under an associated agreement with Saudi Arabia.
  - New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB)
    - The Board’s adoption on January 27, 1997, of a decision on the New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB) enhanced the amount of resources potentially available to the IMF through borrowing in circumstances similar to those covered by the GAB.
    - The New Arrangements do not replace the General Arrangements, which remain in force. The NAB will be the facility of first and principal recourse, unless a GAB participant requests the use of IMF resources.
    - The amount potentially available under the NAB is up to SDR 34 billion, which is also the maximum combined amount available under the two arrangements.
    - The NAB will enter into force when the decision has been adhered to by potential participants with credit arrangements amounting to not less than SDR 28.9 billion, including the five members or institutions with the largest credit arrangements.
    - As of April 30, 1998, two-thirds of the participants, representing some 55 percent of the potential resources under the arrangements, had adhered to the decision.
    - Activation and use
      - A proposal for calls may be made by the IMF under either of the arrangements, and if a call under the NAB is not accepted, then such a proposal may be made under the GAB.
      - The credit arrangements under the NAB may be activated for the benefit of an IMF member, either a participant or a nonparticipant, under circumstances similar to those specified in the GAB, except that activation of the GAB for the benefit of a nonparticipant requires additionally that, after consulting with the participants, the Managing Director judges that the IMF faces an inadequacy of resources.

- Access Policy and Limits on Use of IMF Resources
  - Access limits
    - The IMF’s current policies on access to its resources reflect the Board’s decision in 1994 to raise the annual access limit under the credit tranches and the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for a period of three years to 100 percent of quota from 68 percent, while keeping the cumulative access limit unchanged at 300 percent of quota.
    - The Board reviews access policies annually. At the November 1997 review, it decided to maintain the annual and cumulative access limits set in 1994 until the next review of access policies, to be held not later than October 1998.
  - Special facilities
    - The access policies and limits applicable to the credit tranches and the EFF do not apply to the IMF’s special facilities, including the Supplemental Reserve Facility, established in December 1997.
    - Under the SRF, the IMF makes financial assistance available to member countries for a period of up to one year in case of exceptional balance of payments difficulties attributable

*Source: _file11pdf - Box 14*

### Box 1

### Box 1 — The IMF’s Response to the Asian Crisis

### Commitments and Disbursements (as of July 23, 1998)
- Commitments of the International Community and Disbursements of the IMF in Response to the Asian Crisis, as of July 23, 1998 (Billions of U.S. dollars)
- Table text as presented in source:
  - Commitments
    - IMF
    - __________________________________________________
    - CountryIMFMultilateral
    - 2
    - Bilateral
    - 3
    - TotalDisbursements
  - Indonesia11.210.021.1
    - 4
    - 42.35.0
  - Korea20.914.023.358.217.0
  - Thailand 4.0 2.710.5 17.22.8
  - Total36.126.754.9
    - 4
    - 117.724.8
- Footnotes (verbatim):
  - 1 IMF commitments to the Philippines are not included.
  - 2 World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
  - 3 Bilateral contributions to Indonesia and Korea were a contingent second line of defense. 
  - 4 Estimate; amount of new commitments not finalized as of July 23, 1998.

### IMF Monitoring Instruments (types and uses)
- Stand-By Arrangements and IMF-supported programs
  - Provide an explicit indication that the country is cooperating with the IMF and implementing specified policies, thereby boosting confidence in them.
  - Assure the country that IMF resources will be available if needed and provided the agreed conditions are met.
- Informal Staff-Monitored Programs
  - IMF staff monitor the country’s economic program and regularly discuss progress under that program with the authorities; however, there is no formal IMF endorsement of the member’s policies.
- Enhanced Surveillance
  - This also does not constitute formal IMF endorsement of a member’s economic policies.
  - Emphasis is on close and formal monitoring by the IMF.
  - The procedure was initially established to facilitate debt-rescheduling arrangements with commercial banks but has been used occasionally in other situations.
- Role of intensified monitoring
  - In a few cases, the intensified monitoring described above has been a prelude to an IMF-supported adjustment program.
  - More often, monitoring provides the authorities with a framework to reassure interested third parties, such as donors, creditors, or financial markets.

### Lessons for Surveillance from the Asian Crisis (summary of Executive Board review, March 1998)
- General observations
  - The IMF’s performance in identifying emerging tensions in crisis-affected countries at an early stage had been mixed.
  - In the case of Thailand, the IMF had expressed serious concerns about economic developments beginning in 1996—concerns conveyed to the authorities in several ways, including through confidential contacts at the highest level.
  - In other cases in Asia, the IMF—while having identified critical weaknesses, particularly in the financial sector—had been taken by surprise, owing in part to the lack of access to requisite information and also to an inability to see the full consequences of the combination of structural weaknesses in the economy and contagion effects.
  - In particular, in the case of Korea, the IMF had not attached sufficient urgency to the financial tensions that had begun developing in early 1997.
  - With hindsight it was clear that the affected countries’ vulnerabilities had been underestimated, including by the markets.
  - Some other emerging market economies had taken timely and sustained policy measures in the face of market pressures and had been able to fend off spreading turmoil successfully; in those cases, close IMF surveillance had been helpful.
  - Some Directors stressed that it was unrealistic to expect IMF surveillance to detect all problems early and prevent all crises, and that the contagion effects of the crisis in Thailand were, to a large extent, unpredictable.
  - Directors encouraged the staff, in exercising surveillance, to place increased emphasis on the risks of contagion effects.
- Follow-up actions agreed
  - The experience of the past nine months would be used to review the design and implementation of IMF-supported programs; the role of the IMF and other official financing for these programs; collaboration between the IMF and other international institutions, especially the World Bank; the role of the private sector in crisis situations; and the IMF’s policy on public information.
  - A review of the experience with IMF programs in the Asian crisis countries was to be undertaken before the October 1998 Annual Meetings to address questions of program orientation and design, implementation, and, to the extent possible, early program results.
  - The experience with the Asian crisis countries would also be examined in 1998/99 as part of the world economic outlook exercise and in the context of the annual report on international capital markets.
  - Lessons from the Asian experience would be reflected in several papers addressing various aspects of strengthening the architecture of the international monetary system, focusing on the availability and the dissemination of economic data, transparency in members’ policies and in IMF surveillance, and the role of international standards in assessing countries’ policies and practices.
  - There would be further Board discussion on establishing appropriate incentives for international financial flows by involving the private sector in forestalling or resolving financial crises.
  - The IMF would be incorporating lessons from the Asian crisis in its continuing work on orderly and appropriately sequenced capital account liberalization.
  - The experience with World Bank–IMF collaboration, notably in the area of financial sector reform, would be reviewed with the aim of identifying areas with scope for improvement.

### Selected procedural and policy implications highlighted
- Emphasize timely availability of accurate information to improve surveillance effectiveness.
- Strengthen provision of data to the IMF and to the public, including through the Special Data Dissemination Standard and related monitoring.
- Pay particular attention to compiling timely and accurate data on short-term external debt and other supplementary data (reserve-related liabilities, central bank derivative transactions, private sector external debt, prudential-type bank indicators).
- Provide technical assistance where countries are unable to collect required data.
- Increase focus on contagion risks in IMF surveillance.
- Review IMF program design, implementation, collaboration with other institutions, and role of the private sector in crisis prevention and resolution.

*Box 1 text extracted from the IMF Annual Report 1998 PDF content unit: _file11pdf - Box 1*

### Box 5

### Box 5: Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency: Declaration on Principles

### Overview
- The Code’s main provisions are as follows:

### Clarity of Roles and Responsibilities
- The government sector should be clearly distinguished from the rest of the economy, and policy and management roles within government should be well defined.
- There should be a clear legal and administrative framework for fiscal management.

### Public Availability of Information
- The public should be provided with full information on the past, current, and projected fiscal activity of government.
- A public commitment should be made to timely publication of fiscal information.

### Open Budget Preparation, Execution, and Reporting
- Budget documentation should specify fiscal policy objectives, the macroeconomic framework, the policy basis for the budget, and identifiable major fiscal risks.
- Budget estimates should be classified and presented in a way that facilitates policy analysis and promotes accountability.
- Procedures for the execution and monitoring of approved expenditures should be clearly specified.
- Fiscal reporting should be timely, comprehensive, and reliable and identify deviations from the budget.

### Independent Assurances of Integrity
- The integrity of fiscal information should be subject to public and independent scrutiny.

*Source: _file11pdf - Box 5*

### Box 9

### Box 9 — Group Travel by Executive Directors

### Purpose and Rationale
- Travel by a group of Executive Directors was initiated to help broaden Directors’ understanding of the economic problems and policies in individual member countries, with a view to enhancing their contribution to Board discussion of member country policies.

### Trips Undertaken
- A group of Directors traveled to Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, and Mali in February 1998.
- Previous group trips were to Egypt, Jordan, and the Republic of Yemen in June 1996; and to Georgia, Hungary, and Ukraine in October 1996.

### Board Review and Guidance
- In reviewing the trial program of group travel by Executive Directors in June 1997, the Board agreed that the number of annual trips should be flexible, but the aim would normally be for twotrips a year, each to two or three countries.
- Many Directors thought the focus should be on program and intensive-surveillance countries.
- Participation by a Director (or Directors) from a program country in a group visit would be useful.
- Directors favored maintaining flexibility in the selection process. 

*Source: Box 9, _file11pdf - Box 9.*

### Box 14

### Box 14

### IMF Institute and Regional Institutions
- Europe
  - The IMF, in collaboration with the World Bank and certain other international institutions, has established the Joint Vienna Institute (JVI) to provide training to officials of former centrally planned economies that are in transition to market-based systems.
  - In addition to a comprehensive course in applied market economics jointly presented by all sponsoring organizations, the IMF Institute and other IMF departments offer an extensive seminar program covering macroeconomic analysis and policy, banking supervision, payment systems, monetary and exchange operations, fiscal policy, public expenditure management, value-added taxes, social safety nets, financial sector law, and macroeconomic statistics.
  - Recently the Board extended the IMF’s support for the JVI for another five years.
- Capacity building in Africa
  - The Institute has a long-standing cooperative relationship with the regional training institutions in Francophone Africa, namely, the training centers of the Central Bank of West African States (West African Training Center for Banking Studies—COFEB) and the Bank of Central African States.
  - The Institute offers a yearly regional course on Financial Programming and Policies or External Sector Policies, as well as periodic lecturing assistance to the centers.
  - The regional courses benefit from cofinancing from the United Nations Development Programme and the European Union.
  - The Institute emphasizes “capacity building” by training trainers, both in financial macroeconomics and in managerial fields linked to teaching.
  - To respond to the growing need for training in Africa, the Institute helped establish in 1997 the nine-member Macroeconomic and Financial Management Institute of Eastern and Southern Africa (MEFMI) in Zimbabwe and the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) in Nigeria.
- Asia
  - Effective May 4, 1998, the IMF-Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI) commenced the offering of training on policy-related economics to selected government officials, mainly from developing countries in the Asia and the Pacific region.
  - In 1998/99, 13 courses and seminars are scheduled on macroeconomic adjustment and reform policies, financial programming, the problems of transition economies, monetary and exchange operations, public finance, banking supervision, and macroeconomic statistics.
  - The STI is viewed as a precursor to similar regional training centers in other parts of the world.
- South-East Asian Central Banks Research and Training Center (SEACEN)
  - Relations between the IMF Institute and SEACEN (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) developed in the 1970s when the Institute began to send senior staff to assist SEACEN in the formulation of its training program.
  - Since the early 1980s, the Institute has provided lecturing assistance to SEACEN and coordinated lecturing assistance from other IMF departments, and in the early 1990s began to conduct joint courses.
- The Arab Monetary Fund
  - The IMF Institute has maintained a close relationship with the training branch of the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), since its inception in 1988.
  - The Institute has regularly provided the EPI with lecturing assistance in connection with the AMF course on Macroeconomic Management and participated in the AMF course on External Sector Management, first offered in March 1995.
  - Cooperation includes joint courses and seminars and participation by Institute staff in AMF-sponsored seminars.
- Other regional cooperation
  - The Institute has been providing lecturing assistance for courses organized by the Center for Latin American Monetary Studies for several years.
  - It has been cooperating with the Islamic Development Bank on regional training courses since 1994.
  - The Institute conducted its first cooperative training venture with the Asian Development Bank in 1995.

### Borrowing
- General
  - The IMF is a quota-based institution. At the same time, it has authority under its Articles of Agreement to borrow to provide temporary supplements to its usable quota resources, if needed.
- General Arrangements to Borrow (GAB)
  - During the financial year, the IMF renewed the General Arrangements to Borrow (GAB) for a further five-year period from December 26, 1998.
  - The GAB is a set of arrangements under which 11 industrial countries or their central banks have agreed to provide resources to the IMF to forestall or cope with an impairment of the international monetary system.
  - The amount potentially available under the GAB is SDR17 billion, with an additional SDR 1.5 billion available under an associated agreement with Saudi Arabia.
- New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB)
  - The Board’s adoption on January 27, 1997, of a decision on the New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB) enhanced the amount of resources potentially available to the IMF through borrowing in circumstances similar to those covered by the GAB.
  - The New Arrangements do not replace the General Arrangements, which remain in force. The NAB will be the facility of first and principal recourse, unless a GAB participant requests the use of IMF resources.
  - The amount potentially available under the NAB is up to SDR 34 billion, which is also the maximum combined amount available under the two arrangements.
  - The NAB will enter into force when the decision has been adhered to by potential participants with credit arrangements amounting to not less than SDR 28.9 billion, including the five members or institutions with the largest credit arrangements.
  - As of April 30, 1998, two-thirds of the participants, representing some 55 percent of the potential resources under the arrangements, had adhered to the decision.
  - Activation and use
    - A proposal for calls may be made by the IMF under either of the arrangements, and if a call under the NAB is not accepted, then such a proposal may be made under the GAB.
    - The credit arrangements under the NAB may be activated for the benefit of an IMF member, either a participant or a nonparticipant, under circumstances similar to those specified in the GAB, except that activation of the GAB for the benefit of a nonparticipant requires additionally that, after consulting with the participants, the Managing Director judges that the IMF faces an inadequacy of resources.

### Access Policy and Limits on Use of IMF Resources
- Access limits
  - The IMF’s current policies on access to its resources reflect the Board’s decision in 1994 to raise the annual access limit under the credit tranches and the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for a period of three years to 100 percent of quota from 68 percent, while keeping the cumulative access limit unchanged at 300 percent of quota.
  - The Board reviews access policies annually. At the November 1997 review, it decided to maintain the annual and cumulative access limits set in 1994 until the next review of access policies, to be held not later than October 1998.
- Special facilities
  - The access policies and limits applicable to the credit tranches and the EFF do not apply to the IMF’s special facilities, including the Supplemental Reserve Facility, established in December 1997.
  - Under the SRF, the IMF makes financial assistance available to member countries for a period of up to one year in case of exceptional balance of payments difficulties attributable

*Source: _file11pdf - Box 14*

---


_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/websites/imf/imported-flagship-issues/external/pubs/ft/ar/98/pdf/_file11pdf.pdf_