IMF should be more like independent central bank: British PM

LONDON: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) should be run more like an independent central bank and less under political control, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday.

Brown has called for a new Bretton Woods system to cope with the current global financial crisis, referring to the international financial architecture established at the end of World War II.

Of the IMF, he told an audience of business leaders in London: "It should be more like an independent central bank in my view than a political committee, which is what it is at the moment."

Brown added that a new system should better reflect the changing global economic balance of power, in particular the growing weight of China.

"We've got to see how Europe and America particularly can work together. But we've got to involve China in there, and all the emerging market economies," he said.

The Bretton Woods system was agreed at the end of World War II. It set in place the world's financial architecture, which remains in place today, based on the IMF and the World Bank.