A bigger say for China in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) may well be expected given its growing economic clout and increasing contribution to global growth.

Hence, it should not be all that surprising if China leapfrogs Japan to have the most say next only to the United States after a structural reform of the fund's governance.

As the world's third largest economy, China's current IMF quota of 3.72 percent - the sixth largest - only exemplified the long-time underestimation of the quota share of the emerging markets and developing countries and their insufficient representation in the IMF.

However, more voting power for under-represented countries like China is not the end of the IMF reform. Instead, the transfer of quota and voting power to emerging markets and developing countries might be just the beginning to make this international institution more legitimate and effective.

The global financial and economic crisis has laid bare many of the Fund's problems like irrational governing structure, unfair surveillance and untimely early earning system.

To enable it to play a more effective role in tackling the global financial crisis, the Group of 20 leaders agreed to triple the IMF's funds to $750 billion from $250 billion in the April summit held in London.

In response to mounting calls for reforming the governance structure at the IMF, world leaders also have reached a consensus last month that the emerging markets deserve a louder voice that would match their growing clout.

As a result, the IMF has decided to shift quota shares towards dynamic emerging markets and developing countries by at least 5 percent from over-represented to under-represented countries by Jan 2011.

But lagging implementation of past reform shows how inefficiently this institution has been working. If the IMF is to play a significant role in ensuring a balanced and sustainable global recovery, it needs to reshape itself first in line with the new world reality.

That means the IMF needs to undergo wide-ranging administrative structural reform, including the strengthening of responsibilities of the executive board of directors, effective supervision of the administration, reform of chairman election system and increasing the proportion of administrative and working staff from the emerging markets and developing countries.

Besides, any single country's de facto veto power in the IMF will prove more and more inopportune in an era when global solutions come to prevail.

As to the sharing of responsibilities, there seems no reason to refuse to introduce an automatic adjustment mechanism for the Fund's quota in the mid- and long-term to reflect the evolving weight of each member in the global economy.

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