Bank of China governor Dai Xianglong has criticised the International Monetary Fund for putting too much pressure on developing countries to reform their financial systems while paying insufficient attention to their needs.
In a speech to the IMF's policy-making interim committee, Mr Dai said there particularly seemed to be an excessive emphasis on the issue of transparency which, although important, was not the cause of the Asian financial crisis.
Beijing broadly supports IMF proposals for greater transparency but Mr Dai warned 'since transparency was not the major reason for the crises, to excessively stress this issue may divert the necessary attention away from the deep-seated problems which caused the crises'.
He said instead of moving quickly to higher standards of transparency, developing countries should be allowed to take a more gradual approach.
The IMF is keen that all its members sign up to high standards covering data dissemination, monetary and financial policy and banking supervision.
However, Beijing still withholds certain economic data from public scrutiny and consistently refuses to allow publication of the IMF's regular survey of the mainland's economy.
'The more transparent the better is not always true,' Mr Dai said.
