The announcement was made just before IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington next week, which are expected to draw thousands of delegates, observers and journalists from the fund’s 190 member countries. Now that it’s known Georgieva will stay on as the IMF’s managing director, visitors can focus on economic issues rather than the IMF’s internal workings.
A Bulgarian economist whose current term started in 2019 and runs through the end of September, Georgieva received the backing of European Union finance ministers last month, including France and Germany.
The leader of the Washington-based fund has always been a European chosen by European nations, a post-World War II understanding with the US, which in turn chooses the president of the World Bank. Georgieva was the World Bank’s chief executive officer before becoming the chief of the IMF.
Georgieva, 70, led the fund’s efforts to aid indebted countries through the pandemic and has more recently warned about the global economic impact of trade fragmentation caused by worsening US-China relations.
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She’s also advocated re-balancing the representation of countries at the IMF, where members like China and India have voting shares much smaller than their share of global economic output.
