Russia’s Finance Ministry supports nomination of Georgieva to become IMF head

Russia’s Finance Ministry said that Russia has a positive attitude towards the nomination of Bulgaria’s Kristalina Georgieva to become the head of the International Monetary Fund and will be ready to support her during the voting.

"Georgieva is a brilliant diplomat, a fully trained economist, a competent and highly professional financier. In a situation of growing protectionism in the global economy, her experience in solving problems of development will be more useful than ever," Reuters cited the Russian ministry as saying.

The EU member states picked their candidate on Friday after two rounds of voting and prolonged negotiations. Georgieva defeated Dutch candidate Jeroen Dijsselbloem to get the backing of the 28 EU countries.

Georgieva has been chief executive of the World Bank since 2017. She also worked at the institution between 1993 and 2010, starting as an environmental economist, then rising to vice president and corporate secretary in 2008.

In between, she served as European commissioner for international cooperation, humanitarian aid and crisis response as well as the Commission's vice president for budget and human resources.