The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects to finalise plans to complete the allocation of Special Drawing Rights of $650 billion, the biggest issuance in its history, by the end of August. The measure would bolster the Washington-based lender’s reserves after it distributed more than $109bn in emergency loans and debt relief to countries struggling to cope with Covid-19 pandemic-driven economic, social and healthcare challenges, said a press release received here on Saturday. “Today the IMF executive board discussed a proposal for a new $650bn SDR allocation – the largest issuance in the IMF’s history aimed at helping its membership, especially the most vulnerable, overcome the Covid-19 crisis,” IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said following the board’s meeting. “The board discussion is another step in the process toward a new SDR allocation, which we expect to be completed by the end of August,” he added An increase in Special Drawing Rights is one of several measures the Washington-based fund had called for at its joint meetings with the World Bank in April this year. Special Drawing Rights are an international reserve asset created by the IMF in the late 1960s. They are based on a basket of five global currencies – the US dollar, the euro, the Chinese renminbi, the Japanese yen and the British pound. The pandemic tipped the global economy into its worst recession since the Great Depression last year, with the world output shrinking 3.3 percent. However, a rapid vaccine rollout by nations across the world and the injection of about $16 trillion of fiscal stimulus and $9 trillion of monetary support by governments and central banks have helped the global economy bounce back. It is forecast to expand by 6 percent this year, according to the fund. The IMF’s response to the pandemic has been geared around providing emergency financing and debt relief to the world’s poorest countries, as well as campaigning for global governments to agree to bilateral debt relief deals. Earlier this month, the IMF and the World Bank set up a high-level advisory group of economists, development finance experts and academics to devise strategies for a sustainable recovery from the pandemic.