A successful review of Malawi's performance by the International Monetary Fund will increase donor confidence and speed up the release of pledged funds, Finance Minister Ken Kandodo said on Tuesday. The IMF executive board completed the first review of Malawi's economic performance under the new Extended Credit Facility last week and said this enabled the southern African nation to draw an equivalent of SDR 13.88 million (about $21.4 million). "The Fund is satisfied with our performance so far and this successful review will also give confidence to our traditional donors to timely release a remainder of $100 million in this financial year," Kandodo told Reuters. Kandodo said that Malawi met some of the targets under the IMF programme. "We managed to meet our domestic debt repayment target of 1.5 percent of GDP, we were also successful in meeting the reserves (target)," he said. The reserves target was set at 3 months of import cover. The IMF approved a three year facility of $79.4 million for Malawi in February this year, which is 75 percent of Malawi's quota in the fund.
