IMF's Kristalina Georgieva would be 'honoured to serve' for second term

Managing director since 2019 enjoys endorsement of high-ranking European officials

International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva worked as the chief executive of the World Bank and as its interim president for three months before joining the IMF. Reuters

International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva “would be honoured” to serve a second term at the fund as European countries support her to continue in the job.

“I have received words of support for the work of the IMF from many of our members in recent weeks,” she wrote in a post on X Friday. “If the broader membership agrees, I would be honoured to continue to serve.”

Ms Georgieva has been serving as the managing director of the IMF since 2019 and her term ends in September.

Countries including France and Germany supporting continued leadship, with French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire saying last week that Ms Georgieva is doing a “great job” and that his country would back another term, Bloomberg reported.

A German senior official indicated on Thursday that Finance Minister Christian Lindner is sympathetic to reappointing Ms Georgieva to the post.

She needs the backing of major European nations and the US to ensure the success of her bid.

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1953, Ms Georgieva holds a PhD in economic Science and a MA in political economy and sociology from the University of National and World Economy, Sofia, where she was an associate professor between 1977 and 1993, according to her biography on IMF’s website.

She is author and co-author of more than 100 publications on environmental and economic policy, including textbooks on macro- and microeconomics.

She also worked as the chief executive of the World Bank and as its interim president for three months before joining the IMF.

Ms Georgieva led the IMF during the coronavirus pandemic crisis the world economies struggled to recover and raise finances to meet their funding requirements.

She also led the fund as the world grappled with the Ukraine conflict and the current tensions in the Middle East, which continue to affect growth worldwide.

Ms Georgieva is a believer in openness and the need for global co-operation. Her years living in Bulgaria at the height of US-USSR antagonism “taught me that a divided world leaves so many people out, virtually out in the cold during the Cold War, and that drives my determination to work for a more collaborative world,” she told The National in an interview last year.

She has also been advocating for governments to remove fossil fuel subsidies to accelerate decarbonisation goals.

“We believe that with a package of measures that include carbon pricing, elimination of harmful subsidies and policy support that would bring an acceleration of decarbonisation in a meaningful way, we can still make this decade one where we can take pride in our actions,” she told the Cop28 summit in Dubai last year.