China said Monday it was a rightful move for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to make a recent proposal allowing the world's second-largest economy to have a bigger voice in the global lending agency.
The IMF, which has been under fire for having an unbalanced representation of emerging economies, proposed on Friday a sweeping reform to increase China's quota in the IMF to 6.39 percent from its current 3.9 percent.
The proposal, if realized, will make China the third-largest stakeholder in the IMF, after only the United States (17.41 percent) and Japan (6.46 percent). China is currently the sixth largest.
"This is obvious progress," Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said in a statement posted on the government's Web site. "China is one of the under-represented countries, and it's rational and sensible to give China a larger quota."
Cui said the quota shift is just the beginning of the IMF reform, adding that he is looking forward to more changes to the global financial institution.
The vice minister said China will not try to maximize its own interests, but will seek an "all-win situation" with other emerging economies and other IMF members.
Finance ministers of the Group of 20 (G-20) countries agreed in Gyeongju, South Korea, last month to a shift of at least 6 percent of quota shares in the IMF from over-represented economies to under-represented dynamic emerging countries, while protecting the voting power of the poorest members.
The ministers were following an agreement the G-20 leaders made in June to conclude discussions for the quota transition before the upcoming summit in Seoul this week.