(标题译文:IMF计划制定主权财富基金行为准则)

The International Monetary Fund's executive board gave the go-ahead Friday for its staff to develop a code of best practices for sovereign wealth funds by the organization's fall meeting in October.

The IMF plans to hold a roundtable with the state-owned funds in April, with the aim of coming up with a draft of a code by August.

Jaime Caruana, director of the IMF's monetary and capital markets department, said the set of principles agreed to Thursday by the U.S., Abu Dhabi and Singapore was a welcome contribution to the IMF's work. He noted the three countries endorsed the effort underway by the IMF and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to develop a set of best practices for both sovereign wealth funds and the countries in which they invest.

'I think we are all moving basically in the same direction,' said Mr. Caruana on a conference call. 'We think a better understanding of the role and the practices of the sovereign wealth funds, and the development of this set of best practices, would be mutually beneficial to all the parties.'

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced an agreement with officials from Abu Dhabi and Singapore, which operate sovereign wealth funds, on sets of principles for both the funds and their recipients.

The funds, which have increased rapidly to as much as $3 trillion globally, have come under greater scrutiny as they have shifted more assets into equity holdings. The IMF projects they could expand to $10 trillion in five years, while other estimates anticipate as much as double that amount.

Their growth could have implications for global asset flows. As sovereign wealth funds seek more diversified portfolios, the value of the dollar could be depressed.

In an IMF staff analysis, the U.S. was estimated to see an annual drop in inflows of 0.25% to 0.5% of gross domestic product, which would result in a 2% to 5% decline in the dollar and a 0.10 to 0.25 percentage point pickup in real interest rates in the U.S.

'While the model estimates do not suggest a disorderly depreciation of the U.S. dollar, or a disorderly unwinding of global imbalances, they do not take into account possible second-round effects as other investors react to the change in the behavior of [sovereign wealth funds],' the report stated, adding it would 'help alleviate the overvaluation of the dollar.'



Tom Barkley