WASHINGTON (PTI) -- In a major step towards reforming its functioning, the International Monetary Fund today agreed to give developing countries a larger say in its decision making and overhaul its economic surveillance system.

At the 2006 Spring Meeting, countries -- represented by their Finance Ministers or Central Bank Governors -- agreed to pave the way for ad hoc increases in voting shares in time for the next annual meeting of the Fund in September, thereby boosting the role of emerging economies' in decision making.

"We resolve to make the IMF more fit for purpose in a global economy and more able to address challenges that are quite different from those of 1945, when the IMF was created," remarked British finance minister and IMFC (the IMF's policy setting committee) Chairman Gordon Brown.

The committee agreed on the need for fundamental reforms and called upon senior IMF officials to come forward with concrete proposals for agreement at the Annual Meetings in Singapore in September.

"We also agreed that to reflect changing times, voice, votes, and quotas should reflect the changing international economic weight of countries in the global economy," said Brown.