SEOUL, Nov 12 (Reuters) - More jobs in the upper ranks of international financial institutions should go to people from emerging economies, President Hu Jintao said on Friday.
In a speech to a summit of the Group of 20 major economies, Hu welcomed a recent shift in voting power at the International Monetary Fund to give developing countries more say in the running of the Washington-based lender.
"The reform of international financial institutions is a long and dynamic process. Quota and voting power reforms are just a starting point and much remains to be done," Hu said.
He added: "We should continue to push for fair and merit-based selection of the management of international financial institutions, enable more people from the developing countries to take up mid-level and senior management positions and redress the under-representation of developing countries at the management level in the institutional framework of international financial institutions."
China's delegation released an English-language version of his remarks.
There are few Chinese in senior positions at IFIs.
Zhu Min, a former deputy governor of the Chinese central bank, is a special adviser to IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Justin Lin is chief economist at the World Bank.
Hu said China backed the IMF in its efforts to prevent the "destructive" impact of large capital movements, both inward and outward, on individual economies.
Wading into the debate on how to improve the global monetary order, Hu called for "an international reserve currency system with stable value, rule-based issuance and manageable supply".
Central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan proposed in March 2009 that a strengthened version of the Special Drawing Right, the IMF's in-house unit of account, could eventually dethrone the dollar as the world's premier reserve currency.
In a thinly veiled criticism of the United States, Hu urged countries that issue reserve currencies to adopt responsible policies and maintain relatively stable exchange rates.
Chinese officials have pointedly voiced dissatisfaction with the Federal Reserve's easy-money policy in the run-up to the Seoul summit, fearing it will trigger destabilising flows of footloose capital into emerging markets in search of yield.
The United States in response has consistently urged China to expand domestic demand so its economy relies less on exports.
Hu said China would do just that and switch to a growth model driven by consumption. (Reporting by Zhou Xin and Alan Wheatley; Editing by Alex Richardson)