From tonight's Financial Times:
THURSDAY OCTOBER 15 1998 Americas
Congress set to approve IMF funding
Republicans ease conditions as global crises hurt US economy, reports Nancy Dunne in Washington
<Picture: IMF>The US Congress will almost certainly approve the long-delayed $18bn US contribution to the International Monetary Fund today or tomorrow.
White House and Congressional negotiators yesterday agreed to set up two commissions to ensure reforms at the Fund, a move that essentially clears the way for a final vote, although some details remain to be settled.
IMF funding has been the highest priority of the Clinton administration during this session.
With individual members of Congress anxious to go home and campaign for mid-term elections, negotiators said conditions attached to the US share of a $90bn recapitalisation of the IMF had been eased. The IMF will deploy the funds to counter the spread of financial crises in emerging economies.
The agreement, which has followed months of Republican resistance, came as legislators grew increasingly concerned that the crisis had begun to hurt the US economy. The conditions, which include higher interest rates on some loans and increased openness at the IMF, are not expected to face opposition from other leading government shareholders.
Negotiators working on the overall US budget package, which includes the IMF funding, were making progress on a number of fronts, as President Bill Clinton used the threat of his veto to demand his priorities finally be addressed.
The two sides agreed to spend $1.1bn more on education but fought over how it would be disbursed.
In the IMF talks, Republicans insisted on an 11-member commission, with three seats reserved for former US treasury secretaries, to study Fund actions over the next two years. The Democrats demanded an eight-member commission - consisting of two members each from business, labour, finance and nongovernmental groups - to advise the treasury secretary on the IMF.
At many times it appeared Republicans would cave into the party's isolationist wing that wanted to bring down the IMF. Although it had not been finalised, it appeared yesterday the far right had won a victory on the inclusion of an anti-abortion measure that would deprive foreign family planning agencies of US aid if they recommended abortion.
But Republicans dropped a demand that would force the IMF to require investment and capital liberalisation commitments from countries receiving funding. IMF officials representing the Group of Seven major industrialised countries will have to promise to include trade-liberalising measures in IMF packages before the funding is disbursed. This is considered a low hurdle compared with others in the original Senate and House legislation.
Republicans also got a commitment that interest rates would be raised to 3 percentage points above market rates on IMF loans disbursed to stave off contagion.
Democrats have been pushing for the $18bn all year, but they too have emphasised that the Fund will have to become more transparent in its operations. The IMF - reacting to criticism from many of its shareholders - has begun to make more information about its activities available. Democrats yesterday said they were satisfied that the Fund had begun to take into account concerns about environment and labour rights.
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In other news, a mention of NN in the following:
Tuesday, October 13, 1998
VENTURA COUNTY ROUNDUP / BARBARA MURPHY
Coyote Technologies Signs $5-Million Deal
By BARBARA MURPHY
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<Picture: C>oyote Technologies of Westlake Village, a subsidiary of Coyote Network Systems, has signed a three-year equipment and services deal valued at more than $5 million with International Communication Enterprises.
The agreement calls for Coyote to provide ICE with telecommunications equipment such as switches, compression equipment, network management, billing systems and related services. ICE provides wholesale international long-distance voice services and is entering the international market, primarily in the Caribbean.
Shipment of the equipment portion of the agreement, valued at $4 million, will begin in November. Coyote has contracts with Newbridge Networks to provide compression equipment and network management, Info Directions to provide its Cost Guard billing system and APEX to provide the prepaid integrated voice response.
Coyote provides telecom equipment and network services for local, long distance and Internet services. ICE is based in New York City. |
