Reuters reports that Britain said that the world’s seven largest advanced economies moved to boost the International Monetary Fund reserves for the first time since 2009, a step aimed at helping developing countries cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

Britain - which is chairing the Group of Seven (G7) this year - said G7 finance ministers had agreed to support a “new and sizeable” increase in the volume of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), an internal currency used by the IMF.

Any expansion of SDRs will need to be agreed with other countries ahead of the IMF’s spring meeting that takes place in April.

There are currently $293 billion of SDRs in circulation, and the last big expansion took place during the 2009 global financial crisis.

Britain’s finance ministry said extra SDRs would help poorer countries “pay for crucial needs such as vaccines and food imports, and improve the buffers of emerging markets and low-income countries”.