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Kristalina Georgieva is poised to win a second five-year term running the International Monetary Fund as the nomination period closed on Wednesday with no other candidates put forward to challenge her.

The IMF’s 24-member board, which chooses the managing director, will now hold meetings with Georgieva and aim to complete the process by the end of April, the fund said in a statement on Thursday.

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A Bulgarian economist whose term started in 2019 and runs through the end of September, Georgieva got 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 national picked by European nations, a post-World War II understanding with the US, which in turn chooses the president of the World Bank. 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.

She’s also advocated re-balancing the representation of developing and emerging countries at the IMF, where their voting share are much smaller than their share of global output, particularly for countries like China and India.

Georgieva has also been an advocate of pro-market economic reforms in China and a key driver of efforts to bring it further into the global financial system, most notably by pushing Beijing to coordinate with Western creditors on emerging market debt issues, where it’s been a major lender.

A group of House Republicans last month demanded that the US use its influence to replace Georgieva, citing reports of ethical breaches and inability to hold China accountable for its lending and currency practices. – Bloomberg

The lawmakers cited the IMF’s debate over whether to replace Georgieva in October 2021 after an investigation alleged that she improperly influenced a ranking of China’s business climate compiled by the World Bank, where she had previously worked. Georgieva denied the allegations. – Bloomberg

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