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His Excellency Mr. Alexis Tsipras Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic Athens, Greece Dear Prime Minister, Thank you for your letter of April 2, in which you ask about the IMF’s position regarding the program negotiations with Greece. My view of the ongoing negotiations is that we are still a good distance away from having a coherent program that I can present to our Executive Board. I have on many occasions stressed that we can only support a program that is credible and based on realistic assumptions, and that delivers on its objective of setting Greece on a path of robust growth while gradually restoring debt sustainability. Otherwise it would fail to re-establish confidence, with the implication, among others, that Greece would soon again be forced to adopt yet more measures.  Of course, any speculation that IMF staff would consider using a credit event as a negotiating tactic is simply nonsense. As you and I have discussed several times, including rec...

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today completed the regular five-yearly review of the basket of currencies that make up the Special Drawing Right (SDR). A key focus of the Board review was whether the Chinese renminbi (RMB) met the existing criteria to be included in the basket. The Board today decided that the RMB met all existing criteria and, effective October 1, 2016 the RMB is determined to be a freely usable currency and will be included in the SDR basket as a fifth currency, along with the U.S. dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen and the British pound. Launching the new SDR basket on October 1, 2016 will provide sufficient lead time for the Fund, its members and other SDR users to adjust to these changes. At the conclusion of the meeting, Ms. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF, stated: “The Executive Board's decision to include the RMB in the SDR basket is an important milestone in the integration of the Chinese econom...