Saudi- IMF belongs to all, says Lagarde 

(MENAFN - Arab News) Christine Lagarde, French finance minister and candidate for top job at the International Monetary Fund, visited Jeddah on Saturday as part of her world tour to leverage support for her candidacy from emerging economies.

Lagarde said that during her visit she had held deep and detailed discussions with the Saudi Minister of Finance and the governor of the central bank. "In my time in Jeddah I was even more convinced of the principles I would need to adopt for the International Monetary Fund," she said. Lagarde noted that the IMF did not belong to any one of the 187 member countries "but to all members" and that diversity was a guiding principle.

"The managing director is accountable not to France, not to the Europeans, not to the emerging markets but to the entire membership, the 187 members," she said. "We must continue to improve in terms of governance, staff and management with appropriate geographical rationalization and diversity."

This followed on from her expressed commitment that should she be elected the priority for the IMF would be to tackle the problem of sovereign debt and would look at one of the main purposes of the fund, which was to restore stability.

"We should apply these criteria without discrimination, without privilege and with due respect to the diversity of management."

Lagarde said that over the last three years the IMF had gone through a series of reforms both at governmental level and in the composition and origination of its staff and management. "In my view there is a transformation (of the fund) under way with a view to opening up and showing the transparency for the fund to be legitimate." She added that in the reforms was the inclusion of social and planning objectives as well as the "strict and straight" fiscal objectives of the fund.

Noting talks with Saudi colleagues earlier in the day, Lagarde said that there must be more diversity in recruitment to the IMF both geographically and in terms of training. "It's not a case of, 'one size fits all,'" she said. "I am very confident," Lagarde told journalists after what she called "satisfying" meetings with Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and her Saudi counterpart, Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf.

Al-Assaf said Saudi Arabia will seek a greater role in the IMF. "Saudi Arabia plays an important role in the world economy and so we will call for strengthening the Kingdom's role and share in the IMF," the minister said. He also called for an increase in the number of Saudis working in leadership roles in the IMF.