Special drawing rights (SDRs) are supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets defined and maintained by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Not a currency, SDRs instead represent a claim to currency held by IMF member countries for which they may be exchanged. As they can only be exchanged for euros, Japanese yen, pounds sterling, or US dollars, SDRs may actually represent a potential claim on IMF member countries' nongold foreign exchange reserve assets, which are usually held in those currencies. While they may appear to have a far more important part to play, or, perhaps, an important future role, being the unit of account for the IMF has long been the main function of the SDR.
Created in 1969 to supplement a shortfall of preferred foreign exchange reserve assets, namely gold and the US dollar, the value of a SDR is defined by a weighted currency basket of four major currencies: the US dollar, the euro, the British pound, and the Japanese yen. SDRs are denoted with the ISO 4217 currency code XDR.
SDRs are allocated to countries by the IMF. Private parties do not hold or use them. As of March 2011, the amount of SDRs in existence is around XDR 238.3 billion, but this figure is expected to rise to XDR 476.8 billion by 2013.
Famous quotes containing the words special, drawing and/or rights:
“We cannot set aside an hour for discussion with our children and hope that it will be a time of deep encounter. The special moments of intimacy are more likely to happen while baking a cake together, or playing hide and seek, or just sitting in the waiting room of the orthodontist.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)
“The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Human beings have rights, because they are moral beings: the rights of all men grow out of their moral nature; and as all men have the same moral nature, they have essentially the same rights. These rights may be wrested from the slave, but they cannot be alienated: his title to himself is as perfect now, as is that of Lyman Beecher: it is stamped on his moral being, and is, like it, imperishable.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)