Jaitley leaves for US on Tuesday for IMF-WB meeting

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will on Tuesday leave on a 10-day US visit to attend the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, followed by an address at a UN session on the drugs problem, as well as an interaction with American investors.

Briefing reporters about the finance minister's US visit, an official source here said that during his stay in Washington, Jaitley is also likely to meet US administration officials.

The Spring Meetings will also be attended by Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan and Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian.

Jaitley will arrive in New York on April 17 for the second leg of his US tour, where he will address a Special Session of the UN on the World Drug Problem on April 19.

Later, Jaitley will hold meetings with the American business community and investors, the source added.

The IMF's historic quota and governance reforms, that for the first time place four emerging market countries -- Brazil, China, India, and Russia -- among its 10 largest members, came into effect in January this year after these were approved by the US Congress in 2015.

They had been approved by the IMF's Board of Governors in December 2010.

The reforms, pending for long, also increase the financial strength of the IMF, by doubling its permanent capital resources to SDR 477 billion (about $659 billion) from about SDR 238.5 billion (about $329 billion).

Other top 10 members of the 188-nation agency include the US, Japan, and four big European countries -- France, Germany, Italy and Britain.

The reforms represent a major step toward better reflecting in the institution's governance structure the increasing role of dynamic emerging market and developing countries, the IMF has said.

Currently, India has voting rights of 2.34 percent. In terms of quota, the country has a share of 2.44 percent.