ISTANBUL (AFP) - The International Monetary Fund said on Friday it needs more money to strengthen its position as the global lender of last resort and avoid destabilising buildups of big national reserves. IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that despite a massive boost this year in the funds lending capacity to help member countries weather the global economic and financial crisis, the additional support was only temporary. Official foreign reserves have surged in recent years, primarily in emerging countries but also in developing ones, he said, adding that overall holdings have vaulted above $8 trillion (5.5 trillion euros) this year from two trillion in the late 1990s. In theory, the IMF should have been able to provide the financial insurance demanded by these countries. However, concerns about the amount of financing available from the fund, and also the conditions attached to this financing, caused countries to self-insure instead, he said in a speech in Istanbul, according to the prepared text. The funds new lending resources may not be enough to reassure our members and financial markets that they would be sufficient to meet future crises, he said. And because providing global financial insurance is so critical for crisis resolution and crisis prevention, the resource base of the IMF should be increased further, he said. How much is needed is of course a difficult question some have said one trillion dollars, while others think the resource base should be far larger than that. Strauss-Kahn said the Group of 20 largest economies had provided a strong endorsement of the IMF as the key institution for meeting the financial needs of economies in crisis by following through on an April pledge to triple the funds lending resources to 750b dollars. The 500 billion dollars pledged by the G20 were five-year credits granted to the fund under its New Arrangements to Borrow, a resource the 186-nation fund can use if it believes it lacks the resources to meet members needs. Strauss-Kahn pointed out that to date the IMF already had committed financing more than twice the amount it lent during the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, and had reformed its lending practices to make them more flexible and reliable. In the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, countries such as Indonesia and South Korea turned to the IMF for aid to counter speculative attacks on their currencies but chafed at IMF conditions on the loans.