The United States will support China for a modest increase in its voting power at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Timothy D. Adams, the Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs, was quoted as saying that the Bush administration will support giving China and several other countries greater voting power on the IMF board, reflecting these countries' growing clout in the global economy.

The initiative is scheduled to come up before the IMF's policy-making body at its annual meeting in Singapore on Sept. 18-19, according to the report.

The IMF must give greater representation to nations that complain that their voting power lags behind their economic power, said Adams, adding China's economy is twice the size of those of Belgium and the Netherlands combined, but Belgium and the Netherlands have 1.5 times as many votes.

Adams said that at the meetings in Singapore, "hopefully we'll be able to bless" a deal that would give China, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey "a down payment" in terms of their IMF power. He also suggested that a more far-reaching reallocation of votes could come later.

The Fund, traditionally dominated by the United States, European countries and Japan, while discussing at a Wednesday meeting the issue of a quota reallocation that included more countries, favored the four countries cited by Adams, IMF spokesman David Hawley said.

Speaking in Tokyo three weeks ago, the IMF Managing-Director Rodrigo Rato said that the Singapore meeting should see immediate changes to the voting powers of under-represented members.

"It's important, not so much to change the direction of the institution but to give it stronger credibility, so that the most dynamic economies get the representation their real economic weight represents in the world," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 25, 2006)