International Monetary Fund Annual Report 1957

This paper reviews key findings of the IMF’s Annual Report for the fiscal year ended April 30, 1957. The report highlights that boom conditions continued throughout 1956, sustained by an undercurrent of private business investment sufficiently strong to compensate for such weaknesses as appeared in some individual sectors. Any apprehensions, which might have been entertained in the early months of the year that the upward trend of business was soon to be reversed, were thus shown to be without foundation.

The Annual Report to the Board of Governors reviews the IMF's activities and policies during any given year. There are five chapters: (1) Overview, (2) Developments in the Global Economy and Financial Markets, (3) Policies to Secure Sustained and Balanced Global Growth, (4) Reforming and Strengthening the IMF to Better Support Member Countries, and (5) Finances, Organization, and Accountability. the full financial statements for the year are published separately and are also available, along with appendixes and other supplementary materials.

This paper reviews key findings of the IMF’s Annual Report for the fiscal year ended April 30, 1956. The report highlights that the world payments situation has in fact improved, restrictions have been further relaxed, the transferability of important currencies has been extended, and discrimination, especially that resulting from bilateral arrangements, has had less influence on the direction of trade. Progress in extending multilateral trade and payments has thus been maintained, although during the year there was no addition to the list of IMF members that have established formal convertibility of their currencies.

This paper reviews key findings of the IMF’s Annual Report for the fiscal year ended April 1950. The report highlights that the widespread devaluation of currencies that took place in September 1949 was the most far-reaching in any comparable period in recent times. Thirteen members agreed new par values with the IMF, most of them involving a devaluation of approximately 30.5 percent in relation to the U.S. dollar. Six member countries with which the IMF has no agreed par value also depreciated their exchange rates.

The speeches made by officials attending the IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings are published in this volume, along with the press communiqués issued by the International Monetary and Financial Committee and the Development Committee at the conclusion of the meetings.

This paper reviews key findings of the IMF’s Annual Report for the fiscal year ended April 30, 1960. The report highlights that the year ended April 1960 showed a continued upswing in world industrial activity and an increase in world trade. Industrial production in 1959 was greater by 10 percent than in the recession year of 1958, and the value of world trade increased by 6 percent, both increases being more or less continuous from about the middle of 1958.

This paper reviews key findings of the IMF’s Annual Report for the fiscal year ended April 1949. The report highlights that the unbalanced conditions that have characterized the world economic situation since the end of the war still prevail. In many countries, there remains a striking discrepancy between demand and productive capacity, and an even greater discrepancy between the need for imports and capacity to pay for them. Until effective measures are taken to meet these closely related problems, there can be little hope of achieving the expansion of world trade on a multilateral basis.