Georgieva has been accused of lobbying for China

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva is targeted by the World Bank for a recently released report, which claims the former IMF chief lobbied for China as she headed the financial body between January 2017 and October 2019..

The World Bank, in an investigation into its Doing Business report, uncovered such serious ethical issues that it decided to abandon the series altogether, she announced Thursday. China’s position in the 2018 report, released in October 2017, should have been seven places lower, at 85 instead of 78, the agency said.

“The changes to Chinese data in Doing Business 2018 appear to be the product of two different types of pressure applied by the bank’s management within the Doing Business team,” the World Bank said. Bank cited Georgieva, along with an adviser, for “pushing” to “make specific changes to China’s data in a bid to improve its ranking at the same time the country was expected to play a key role in the campaign. aimed at increasing the capital of the bank ”.

The report, prepared by U.S. law firm WilmerHale at the request of the bank’s ethics committee, raises concerns about China’s influence over the financial giant and calls into question the views of Georgieva and then World Bank President Jim Yong Kim of South Korea. .

“Disagree”. Georgieva was CEO of the World Bank before being chosen to succeed Christine Lagarde as head of the IMF. Upon disclosure, he disagreed. “I fundamentally disagree with the findings and interpretations of the Data Irregularity Survey regarding my role in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2018 report,” he said in a statement. “I have already had a first briefing with the IMF board on this subject,” added the Bulgarian economist, who is one of Martín Guzmán’s main interlocutors in the debt negotiations.

Chinese ascension. The survey results indicate that World Bank executives, including the then CEO, put “undue pressure” on staff to improve China’s ranking in the 2018 Doing Business annual report. At the time, the Washington-based multilateral entity he was seeking Xi Jinping’s support for a capital increase.

Amid the scandal, the World Bank announced it would cancel the series of reports published since 2003. The integrity of the Doing Business ranking has been at the center of controversy in recent years. Paul Romer resigned in 2018 from his post as chief economist at the World Bank after questioning Chile’s changes to the order in the Doing Business report.