The International Monetary Fund could sell a limited amount of its gold reserves as part of a wider solution to its "flawed" income system, IMF's Managing Director Rodrigo Rato said today.
Mr Rato referred to a report by a panel of eminent officials which suggested that the global financial institution could sell some gold to help put its finances on a more sustainable footing.
"I have received that document. It's a very important document. It has a clear message that the actual income system is flawed and should be reviewed," he said.
Mr Rato was visiting the European Parliament on his way to a meeting of finance ministers of Group of Seven major industrialised powers in Essen, Germany.
"The new income system should have multiple sources of income and one of them could be an endowment created by a limited amount of gold sales," he said. But any sale should only be part of a wider solution to its revenue sources and should not disrupt the gold market, he said.
At the moment, the IMF makes most of its money by lending to countries that get into difficulty. But strong global growth in recent years has seen these revenues shrink, and the IMF projects a funding shortfall of $105 million in fiscal 2007.