U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (left) and Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Photo by Reuters, AFP, Yonhap News
[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] Janet Yellen, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, has recently neither answered nor returned calls from Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Bloomberg News reported on the 27th (local time).
This distancing by the U.S. comes amid allegations that Georgieva was involved in manipulating the World Bank's (WB) Doing Business report during her tenure there. Bloomberg analyzed that Yellen's refusal to take calls may implicitly signal the U.S. government's withholding of support for Georgieva, despite no official statement being made.
Georgieva is accused of improperly intervening to raise China's ranking in the WB's Doing Business report while working at the WB.
On the 16th, the WB released an investigative report stating that China's ranking in the 2018 Doing Business report, published in October 2017, should have been 85th instead of 78th. The report revealed that former WB President Jim Yong Kim's aides and Georgieva, then CEO of the WB and now IMF Managing Director, exerted pressure to elevate China's ranking. The WB commissioned law firm WilmerHale to investigate the 2018 and 2020 Doing Business reports, which uncovered these allegations.
Bloomberg cited an anonymous source stating that Georgieva wishes to discuss these allegations with Secretary Yellen, but Yellen is not answering her calls. The source added that Georgieva could easily communicate with Yellen before the allegations surfaced, but that is no longer the case. The U.S. is the largest shareholder of both the WB and IMF, and the Treasury Department oversees related affairs.
Timothy Ash, investment strategist at BlueBay Asset Management in London, UK, said, "The credibility of the IMF has clearly been damaged," and pointed out that "Managing Director Georgieva should exercise restraint until the investigation is complete."
A U.S. Treasury official confirmed that the Treasury has reviewed the related allegations and finds them concerning and serious. The official added that the Treasury is currently awaiting the IMF's own judgment.
The IMF Ethics Committee is currently reviewing the report released by the WB on the 16th.
On the 21st, Georgieva sent a three-page letter to the chair of the IMF Ethics Committee. In the letter, she expressed surprise that WilmerHale concluded she played a significant role in the report and emphasized that the claim that she played a significant role is clearly untrue.
The IMF stated it will thoroughly verify the allegations related to Managing Director Georgieva. Georgieva disagrees with WilmerHale's conclusions and insists that the IMF review the allegations twice or thrice, maintaining her claim of non-involvement.
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