Jimmy Carter photo

World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund Remarks at the Opening Session of the Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors.

September 25, 1978

Mr. Chairman, Managing Director deLarosiere, President McNamara, Governors of the Fund and the Bank, and distinguished visitors:

On behalf of the American people, I want to welcome you to Washington again for your 33d annual meeting.

We meet as a group, dedicated to the cause of international cooperation. In the political field, you and I share the belief that cooperation among leaders can lead to peace. We've learned that lesson once again in the last few days. And I know that you will join me in saluting the statesmanship and the courage of President Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Menahem Begin.

Your tremendous influence as leaders in your own nations can contribute greatly to maintaining the momentum toward peace, both in the Middle East and throughout the world. In the economic field, also, cooperation brings large benefits to the people who look to us for leadership.

Three decades of existence of the Fund and the Bank have brought progress and a better life for the people of the world. Like you, I want to build on that record to achieve still further economic cooperation, progress, and a better life. Since your meeting here last year, our countries, acting together, have made tangible progress on world economic problems.

The issues that remain, as you and I well know, are very difficult. But they, like other difficult questions, are not insoluble.

You assembled in this room are the economic leaders of the world. The task before you is to consolidate past gains and then to push ahead in ways that will foster economic growth in both developing and the industrialized nations.

Our goal is to achieve progress for all peoples, not just a few. The basic strategy has already been agreed. In Mexico City, at the IMF Interim Committee, agreement was reached on the general directions that economic policy should take.

Progress on those agreements has been made. The outlook for improvement is good. We must not falter. A contribution to this strategy is needed from every country represented here, no matter how great nor small, no matter how weak nor powerful.

In this effort, the United States has a major responsibility. Two months ago at Bonn, I made specific promises to our major trading partners about the actions that my country will take to this end. I pledged that the United States will fight inflation, will reduce oil imports, will expand exports.

Let there be no doubt in your mind about how seriously I take these pledges that have been made on my own word of honor and on behalf of the people of the United States. Taken together, they encompass the most urgent priorities of my own administration; my own reputation is at stake as a leader. And they are commitments that I am most fully determined to fulfill.

I've come here today to underline that determination and to describe the next steps that we will take.

I will soon announce the first phase of a long-term program to expand American exports. Removing disincentives to exports and encouraging exports are overriding tasks for my own administration. As you know, compared to many nations represented here, the export commitment has not been as great in our own country as it has perhaps among some of you.

I've also intensified my efforts, which were already great, to obtain legislation that will curtail United States imports of oil, imports which are entirely too high.

The United States Senate is scheduled to vote this week, day after tomorrow, on the key bill, natural gas regulation and pricing. This is one of the most complicated and difficult and challenging assignments that the United States Congress has ever faced.

This particular bill is expected to save 1.4 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1985. I am confident that the Senate and then the House of Representatives will do their duty to our Nation by approving this bill. I hope to have other bills comprising a strong package of energy legislation enacted before the Congress adjourns, probably, hopefully, less than a month from now.

This is essential, we know, to a sound American dollar. I intend very shortly to announce a further series of important and specific and tough measures to strengthen our fight against inflation.

These next steps will certainly not be the end of our effort, only the renewed beginning and commitment, part of a sustained effort to control these very serious problems for our own people in this country, and our relationship with your countries as well.

Every nation represented in this more understands how difficult this struggle against inflation is and what sustained commitment it demands. My administration will continue that struggle on a wide variety of fronts until we succeed. There will be obstacles and objections from special interest groups all along the way. But I will not shrink from the hard decisions and the persistent efforts that are needed.

I'm determined to maintain a sound dollar. This is of primary importance to us, and I know it is of great interest and importance to you as well. We recognize that our currency plays an international role, and we accept the responsibilities which this involves. Our countries are acting to meet our responsibilities to the system, consistent with the directives set at the IMF meeting in Mexico and as was pledged again by seven of us national leaders at the Bonn summit. The United States will do the same.

Through programs which I have just described, we will achieve the strong U.S. economy and noninflationary U.S. growth that must underlie a sound dollar and a stable international monetary system.

The outlook for progress is good. Some of the causes of our large trade deficit have already been removed. Others are now being removed. Our current account position should improve significantly next year. The United States will remain an open and vigorous economy, and an attractive place to invest.

Other steps are also required to achieve the economic progress that we all seek. In these steps, the IMF and the World Bank have, of course, a vital role to play. These two institutions are the core and the symbol of the international economic order that was built after World War II. They've shown a high capacity to adapt to new and rapidly changing needs. Strengthening and enlarging them, both institutions, is a prime goal of United States policy.

The United States is firmly committed to a strong International Monetary Fund, exercising effective surveillance over the system and with adequate resources to meet official financing needs. The United States has supported and will continue to support an increase in IMF quotas and a new allocation of special drawing rights.

I'm pleased that legislative consideration of U.S. participation in the supplementary financing facility is nearing completion. I expect final action to be taken shortly.

I might report to you that this year, the attitude of the United States Congress is better than it has been in my own memory toward supporting international financial institutions and toward foreign aid as well.

I trust that our European friends will fashion the proposed European monetary arrangements which were discussed, at least superficially, at Bonn in a way that will also strengthen the international monetary system and that will facilitate growth and trade and investment and also, quite importantly, the continued central role of the IMF.

Current European efforts to these ends are a logical step toward the greater European integration which the United States has long supported. We also support proposals to enlarge the resources of the World Bank and its soft loan affiliate, the International Development Association, as we pledged at the Bonn summit.

Again, the Congress has met our expectations. Expanded help to developing countries contributes, we know, to the healthy world economy and to world peace. Last week, the United States Senate, as the House of Representatives had already done, met our Nation's obligations for both multilateral and bilateral aid beyond, I must admit, my own expectations.

I will seek next year to continue this commitment as part of a growing international effort to eliminate the worst aspects of human poverty. The United States Governor for the Fund and the Bank, Secretary of Treasury Mike Blumenthal, will outline our policies in more detail and our prospects for achievement in more detail when he addresses your session tomorrow.

You are gathered in Washington to address formidable challenges in both monetary and development fields. The future of all peoples in both developing and developed countries depends upon the outcome of your deliberations and subsequent action. I reiterate my Nation's commitment to the common effort that is required. I am confident that this joint effort will succeed.

Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 3:25 p.m. in the Sheraton Hall at the Sheraton-Park Hotel to representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the International Development Association, and the International Finance Corporation.

In his opening remarks, the President referred to Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Chairman of the Boards of Governors of the IBRD and IMF, Jacques deLarosiere, Managing Director of the IMF, and Robert S. McNamara, President of the IBRD.

Jimmy Carter, World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund Remarks at the Opening Session of the Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/243389

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