IMF endorses wealth fund guide plan

By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund on Friday endorsed staff plans to develop best practice guidelines for sovereign wealth funds and said it would meet with wealth funds in April to start working on an initial draft.

IMF Director of Monetary and Capital Markets Jaime Caruana said the IMF would establish an international working group of wealth funds and the April meeting would delve into technical details. Current plans are to release the first draft by October meetings of the IMF.

He said the set of best practices would not "be prescriptive code," but would help allay concerns about the increasing size of wealth funds, many of whom reveal very little about their investment strategies and assets.

"We think a better understanding of the role and practices of sovereign wealth funds and development of this set of best practices would be mutually beneficial for all the parties," Caruana told a conference call with reporters.

He also welcomed agreement on Thursday between the U.S. Treasury and Abu Dhabi and Singapore on a set of principles for wealth funds saying it would help, not hinder, the IMF's work.

"We regard this as very good inputs and will be cooperating with many parties and talking with all sovereign wealth funds. We want to work with them and if the work is facilitated by other contributions, we don't have any problem with that. On the contrary, we will be very happy," Caruana added.

The foreign-controlled funds, many based in the Middle East but also in Asia, Russia and China, have sparked concern among U.S. lawmakers because they have poured billions of dollars into Wall Street firms and other businesses and fanned fears that the U.S. was losing control of its destiny.

The IMF has estimated that sovereign wealth funds could reach $6 trillion to $10 trillion by 2013 and currently exceed the size of hedge funds.