EXCLUSIVE - Brazil lends IMF money ahead of BRIC summit

By Todd Benson and Raymond Colitt

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil will join other big emerging economies and lend money to the International Monetary Fund, contributing $10 billion in a move that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva hopes will give it more sway in reforming the multilateral lender.

"That gives us the moral authority to keep pushing for the changes that are needed at the IMF," Lula said on Wednesday in an interview with Reuters at the presidential residence. "Brazil couldn't be left out."

Lula announced the IMF loan one week before he was set to meet his counterparts from key emerging markets in Russia, where leaders of the so-called BRIC nations will gather for the first time to discuss ways to assert a new world order that reflects their growing influence.

His pledge came on the same day that Russia said it would gradually cut its holdings of U.S. Treasuries. Russia's announcement had driven the dollar lower and forced Brazil's finance minister to stress that while his country's loan to the IMF will be made by buying bonds issued by the lender, it is not intended to weaken the U.S. currency.

Lula, 63, has been an outspoken voice calling for a greater role on the global stage for developing countries like the BRICs, a now-famous acronym coined by Goldman Sachs in 2001 to describe the up-and-coming economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The charismatic former union leader said he would urge his counterparts at the BRICs summit in Yekaterinburg to forge a common position on reforming multilateral organizations like the IMF and the United Nations Security Council.

"The BRICs need to establish a common strategy in our negotiations with other blocks, in our negotiations about the U.N.," said Lula, who has made raising Brazil's international profile a priority of his presidency.

Brazil is not the only big emerging market that has decided to help capitalize the IMF. China has pledged $40 billion for the lender and Russia has agreed to give it $10 billion.