The International Monetary Fund said Monday it hoped to extend full fund membership to the Soviet Union - a move that would make available massive financial assistance and debt restructuring needed to transform the country's economy.
IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus and chairman of its Interim Committee, Carlos Solchaga, said they were encouraged and satisfied with a briefing on the Soviet economy given by the author of the country's reform program, Grigory Yavlinsky.Solchaga said the briefing was "a magnificent start of a relationship between the Soviet Union and the IMF."
He said the fund's role in reviving the Soviet economy would concentrate "first in terms of technical assistance and human resources and . . . further down the road (the fund) would be able to assist financially in the process of change."
The Soviet Union presently is only allowed technical help and advice under an associate IMF membership it received this month.
In a statement, the fund said that association was "a step toward membership."
It also called on the industrialized nations to extend more debt relief to the poorest and most indebted countries.
It said countries should cut defense spending and agricultural subsidies in order to help bolster global savings that would be needed to finance economic reconstruction in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.