EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Tuesday 7.30pm
SOUTH Africa will take its fight to halt further sales of central bank gold reserves to the annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank later this month, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Tuesday.
Manuel welcomed reports that the International Monetary Fund has dropped plans to sell its gold reserves to finance debt relief to developing countries, but said that South Africa wants similar pledges from the leading industrialised nations.
“We must seek to secure some commitment from the G7,” Manuel said, referring to the world’s seven biggest industrialised countries. “We need to take measures that take into account the needs of all developing countries, including the gold producing ones,” said Manuel, who has warned that South Africa’s gold industry could collapse, causing massive job losses, if auctions continue to send the bullion price plummeting.
In a reference to Britain, which is about to auction gold on the open market for a second time, Manuel said he finds it “strange that the countries with the biggest gold reserves are the most intent on their solvencies”. The minister said South Africa will also use the annual meeting in Washington from September 25 to 30 to try to secure “a better deal” for developing countries in need of help from the IMF and the World Bank.
For a start, he said, South Africa would like to see more money poured into the trust fund for the Highly Indebted Poor Countries.
“There is too little money in there, we need a few dollars in that HIPC fund. I think we need some pressure,” he said. South Africa also plans to push the IMF to increase the number of countries it was giving assistance to. — AFP