Business Channel 2007-10-04&10-06, 专访国际货币基金组织主席

Scripts:

Mr.Strauss-Kahn, thank you very much for joining us on CNN. In a way, you are taking over an institution which doesn’t have a mission any more, or at least less of a mission than it used to have.

Well, I won’t say that. The mission is almost the same as at the beginning. But you are right in saying that the policies to achieve its mission are not the same any more. So we have to change the way we are acting 1, we are, and, we're thinking and then we are acting in the world just because the world has changed.

What kind of muscle have you got to change the way the exchange rate works,for instance?

We have to tell the truth, we have to be the best analyzing 2 the situation, to say it, here we may have a problem to convince that the other people, mainly the head of state or head of government that there may be a problem there to provide guidelines to solve the question. That’s the role of the IMF.

Are we going to see you needling the US about deficit 3 and debt or are you gonna talk with Chinese about the exchange rate or ...

The question is that it’s a multilateral problem. Everything has to be seen, as you know, what do we say, in the field of game, a kind of cooperative game. And the role of the IMF and imagined wit of the IMF may be to help at least the Chinese and the Americans, but not only the Chinese and the American, the rest of the world, to try to organize the way that the growth of the Chinese economy will be compatible with the rest of the world.

What are you gonna reform? What’s the first thing? What are you gonna change?

A large part of the world has… I won’t say a thing, I am not addressing to the IMF any more, but it looks like that. So we need to rebuild the legitimacy 4 of the institution, and to do so, we need to give more voice and more presentation to emerging countries, because the balance of power has changed, obviously countries, which were the small countries on an economic point of view 60 years ago, are now huge countries, at least becoming huge countries.

Your predecessor 5 had talked about the reform, but why do you think you will succeed where he didn’t?

If I wasn't convinced that I'm able to do it, that I'm able to change at least a little, maybe not enough, but at least a little, what's going on… I wouldn’t have been a candidate.

The IMF, ironically, is running out of money itself(that’s right). So you are gonna have to make cut... (but why, why, you have to take it, why)
Why. Because the income of the IMF is coming from its lending, and the spread on its lending, and we are now in a period where we didn’t experience any crisis, any financial crisis for five years which is a very good thing, so the IMF succeeded in avoiding any financial crisis . But at the same time, the IMF doesn’t lend much money today, so we don’t have enough revenue. So we have to change the income matter of the system. You know it’s a bit like the Chinese, so-called Chinese doctors which are paid only when the patients are in good health, and not paid when they are sick. It’s the same thing.

Notes:

IMF: International Monetary Fund