International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the Fund wanted a fresh start with Asia as he visited Indonesia, Southeast Asia's biggest economy, and met President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Indonesia was hit hard by the Asian crisis and the IMF remains deeply unpopular in the country of 240 million people for its tough package of austerity measures designed to pull the economy out of bankruptcy.

"The main message today is simple. We have to look forward. The IMF has changed," Strauss-Kahn told reporters.

"You have in front on you a new IMF where there's voting power and the voice of Asian countries has increased a lot.

"The last reform we made in governance changed the IMF to reflect better the state of the world and in the new state of the world, Asia in general, Indonesia in particular, has a bigger role than in the past."

He said his meeting with Yudhoyono was the "foundation for rebuilding a new kind of relationship between the IMF and Asia, and Indonesia in particular".

Strauss-Kahn told reporters in Singapore on Tuesday that the IMF had been insensitive to local political and historical circumstances as it struggled to restore confidence in Southeast Asian economies more than a decade ago.