United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference - Purposes and Goals

Purposes and Goals

The Bretton Woods Conference took place in July 1944, but did not become operative until late December 1958, when all the European currencies became convertible. Under this system, the IMF and the IBRD were established. The IMF was developed as a permanent international body. The summary of agreements states, "The nations should consult and agree on international monetary changes which affect each other. They should outlaw practices which are agreed to be harmful to world prosperity, and they should assist each other to overcome short-term exchange difficulties." The IBRD was created to speed up post-war reconstruction, to aid political stability, and to foster peace. This was to be fulfilled through the establishment of programs for reconstruction and development.

The main terms of this agreement were:

  1. Formation of the IMF and the IBRD (at present part of the World Bank).
  2. Adjustably pegged foreign exchange market rate system: The exchange rates were fixed, with the provision of changing them if necessary.
  3. Currencies were required to be convertible for trade related and other current account transactions. The governments, however, had the power to regulate ostentatious capital flows.
  4. As it was possible that exchange rates thus established might not be favourable to a country's balance of payments position, the governments had the power to revise them by up to 10%.
  5. All member countries were required to subscribe to the IMF's capital.

Read more about this topic:  United Nations Monetary And Financial Conference

Famous quotes containing the words purposes and, purposes and/or goals:

    “There has been and always will be plenty of arguments about the usefulness and harm of the spreading of the Bible. In my view the Bible will continue to cause harm when used in a dogmatic and fantastic manner; it will do good when used for didactic purposes and with sensitivity.”
    —Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)

    “There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
    —John Dewey (1859–1952)

    “If people would forget about utopia! When rationalism destroyed heaven and decided to set it up here on earth, that most terrible of all goals entered human ambition. It was clear there’d be no end to what people would be made to suffer for it.”
    —Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)