	treasury s baker says system needs stability treasury secretary james baker said the floating exchange rate system has not been as effective as had been hoped in promoting stability and preventing imbalances from emerging in the global economy in remarks before the afternoon session of the international monetary fund s interim committee baker said he was not suggesting that the system should be abandoned but i do suggest he said that we need something to give it more stability and to keep it headed in the right direction when the wind shifts he said that indicators can serve as a kind of compass but added that structural indicators can help focus attention on some policies baker however said the imf needs to move beyond macroeconomic indicators and find structural indicators that can help focus attention on some of the policies of specific relevance to the imbalances we face today the treasury secretary said that indicators should be given a more prominent role in the annual economic reviews article iv consultations that the fund performs baker also told the policy making group that it was time for the imf to adopt earlier recommendations making imf surveillance more relevant to national policymakers and the public in particular we urge increased publicity for imf appraisals developed in article iv consultations the use of follow up reports on country actions to implement imf recommendations and greater use of special consultation procedures he said baker emphasized that indicators were a device for moving beyond rhetoric to action he said they provide more structure to the system and induce more discipline and peer pressure into the process of policy coordination he said the fund s procedures for surveillance need to be reviewed and updated to reflect the use of indicators this should be matter of priority for the executive board he said baker also urged the fund to develop alternative medium term economic scenarios for countries that can help us focus even more clearly on the most important imbalances by identifying options for addressing them and analyzing the implications of these options he said also that further work should be done on finding paths that lead toward possible medium term objectives if we are to take effective remedial action when there are significant deviations from an intended course then we must have more definitive ways of indentifying the right course for key variables he said reuter 
