7/05/99 - IMF Reassures Gold Markets on Sales
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GENEVA, Jul 05, 1999 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Gold markets have nothing to fear from the International Monetary Fund"s plan to sell gold to finance debt relief for poor countries, the IMF"s managing director said Monday.
Responding to the ""legitimate preoccupation"" of gold producing countries, Michel Camdessus said he believes that ""we can find a solution that everyone can accept unanimously.""
Leaders of the world"s main industrial nations meeting in June in Cologne, Germany, gave the go-ahead for the IMF to sell 10 million ounces of its $27 billion in gold reserves to help finance the IMF portion of debt relief for poor countries.
In the United States, Senators Jesse Helms and Chuck Hagel have charged that the sale would hurt many of these nations and the U.S. gold industry. Lawmakers representing gold mining states have also objected.
""We"re selling 10 percent of our gold. That means we"re keeping 90 percent of our gold and we have no desire to see our remaining 90 percent losing any of its value,"" Camdessus told reporters in Geneva, where he was attending the annual meeting of the U.N. Economic and Social Council.
""So we won"t be so stupid as to sell the gold in a disordered and unplanned way which risks depressing further an already depressed market.""
Although U.S. approval will be needed for the sale, ""I have no reason to doubt the good sense of the United States and I think we will be able to convince them that the way we will proceed poses no major danger to the gold market or to American gold mines,"" Camdessus said.
Copyright 1999 Associated Press, All rights reserved. |
