above all, one might question if further debt relief rightly deserves such a prominent place on the international development agenda as opposed to resetting incentives in accordance with recent historical experience. the imf itself seems to be quite sceptical about this. net flows, not debt relief, matter. but that, of course, is a political decision about which central banks have no a priori view as long as no monetary financing is involved. conclusion ladies and gentlemen this morning my colleague, dr jurgen stark, ended his remarks by recognising the excellent job the imf has so far performed. after a day of intense debate about the future role of the imf in a changing world, there is the danger that this key message will get buried somewhere under the weight of discussions on distinct aspects of the fund ’ s work. and for the rare instances where some criticism of the fund was articulated today, it was certainly in the spirit of the famous german poet, heinrich heine, who once remarked that only “ he profits from praise, who values criticism ”. so let me clearly reiterate that the imf in our view is an indispensable engine to improve the functioning and stability of the international monetary system. i have very much enjoyed listening and talking to you. and i would like to thank all of you. i wish to particularly extend my thanks to the managing director of the imf, rodrigo de rato, and to all the panellists and moderators. special thanks go to our conference staff and to the bundesbank ’ s international monetary affairs division.

axel a weber : the imf in a changing world ( concluding remarks ) concluding remarks by professor axel a weber, president of the deutsche bundesbank, at the joint imf - bundesbank symposium “ the imf in a changing world ”, frankfurt, 8 june 2005. * * * ladies and gentlemen delivering the concluding remarks at a symposium with such outstanding participants and lively discussions is a challenging task. george bernhard shaw once remarked ironically that “ if all economists were laid end to end they would not reach a conclusion ”. it is not too difficult to imagine that he would have acknowledged his proposition as applying to policymakers, too. in his opening remarks, vice president stark posed a list of questions for consideration at this symposium. it was not to be expected, of course, that at the end of the day we could easily resolve all of the issues at hand and provide universally accepted answers. however, given the inherent difficulties of some of the issues discussed here today, symposiums like today ’ s are also valuable in shaping our understanding of the problems at hand and providing new perspectives on feasible solutions. measured against this yardstick, the symposium has more than met my expectations. the current global economic environment and the imf there has been widespread consensus about the driving forces behind the changes in the world economy and the role of the imf. the imf was founded over 60 years ago to meet the needs of an international monetary system with fixed exchange rates and restricted capital mobility. the current environment, however, is a very different one. its defining characteristics are large scale capital mobility and a growing importance of more flexible exchange rate arrangements. some have therefore felt inclined to pose the provocative question of whether we still need the imf at all. one affirmative answer to these sceptics lies in the fact that the transformation of the global economy into the current situation has been all but smooth and cannot safely be assumed to be smooth in the future. the 1980 ’ s witnessed the latin american debt crisis, the 1990 ’ s were fraught with several severe financial crises following abrupt reversals in capital flows to emerging markets. in the aftermath of these experiences, fundamental questions arose concerning the appropriate role of the imf. the same questions which have played a distinct role in today ’ s discussions, too. before i briefly touch on some of these issues, it is worth mentioning, however, that in certain aspects the current global economy has been portrait as not being completely different from that in the days of bretton woods