24-8-2006                                                                                 Reforming the voting system in the International Monetary Fund 1- In the light of the expected review of the IMF members’ quotas and the weight of their votes, Egypt supports the demarche which aims at maintaining the balance of the African voting weight in the Fund’s institutions, because this directly benefits Egypt, and copes with Egypt’s international status, as well as its role in the African continent, as the proposed standard is based on the countries’ economic size which will lead to decreasing Africa’s quota in the Fund. 2- In this context, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs studied the proposal of the Ghanaian President, and prepared a draft letter from President Mubarak to his Ghanaian counterpart concerning the Egyptian support to the Ghanaian approach, which is based on the need to maintain the African voting weight in the Fund during the reviewing process. The letter also suggests that the African position should adopt a criterion that heeds both the economic size and population within the framework of the Fund’s voting weight reviewing process, instead of the economic size only. Applying this double standard will lead to Africa’s acquisition of an acceptable voting quota which will be based on both its economic size, which constitutes  less than 2% if compared to the world economy, as well as the ratio of its population to that of the world which approaches 14%.