OREANDA-NEWS. The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today approved a successor two-year arrangement for Mexico under the Flexible Credit Line (FCL) in an amount equivalent to SDR 47.292 billion (about US\$70 billion). The Mexican authorities stated their intention to treat the arrangement as precautionary.

The FCL is particularly useful for crisis prevention purposes as it provides the flexibility to draw on the credit line at any time. Disbursements are not phased nor conditioned on compliance with policy targets as in traditional IMF-supported programs. This flexible access is justified by the very strong track records of countries that qualify for the FCL, which gives confidence that their economic policies will remain strong.