I N F O R M AT I O N S H E E T
The Benelux IMF constituency
The International
Monetary Fund was set up
at Bretton Woods in 1944. Now
counting 188 member countries,
it has become an almost universal
organisation, which enables it to
act as a competence centre for
global financial stability.
In joining the IMF, the member countries undertake
to pay a financial contribution in proportion to the
country’s economic weight. The same ratio applies
to each country’s access to the Fund’s resources and
its voting rights.
The decision-making body of the IMF is the Board
of Governors, which is made up of one Governor
per member country.
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the remaining countries, some acting individually
such as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, the others
grouped into constituencies. The latter choose an
Executive Director who then has a number of votes
equal to the sum of the votes of the countries in
the group.
From 1 November 2012, Belgium co-chairs with the
Netherlands a constituency of 15 countries.
Six of these countries are members of the EU, one
is an acceding country, two are candidate countries,
and one is a potential candidate. With 6.58 % of
the total votes, the constituency is the largest in
terms of votes, with only one of the five countries
which, owing to the size of their quota, have a seat
without belonging to a constituency, has a larger
number of votes : the United States. Once the 2010
Quota & Governance Reform will become effective,
the constituency, with 5.42 % of the total votes,
will rank fifth, after the United States, Japan, China
and Germany.
An influential electoral group
It is the Executive Board that conducts the day-today business ; it consists of 24 Executive Directors.
The Fund’s principal shareholders – United
States, Germany, Japan, France and the United
Kingdom – each appoint their own. The others
are elected every two years by the Governors from
For more information :
• Information sheet : The Bretton Woods
institutions, n. 30
Photo call at the Bretton Woods monetary conference, Mount Washington Hotel.
© National Bank of Belgium, 1 September 2014
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