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Camdessus leaves IMF, Fischer takes reins as interim heed

WASHINGTON: International Monetary Fund Managing Director Michel Camdessus steps down from his post on Monday after 13 years on the job, leaving his deputy, Stanley Fischer, temporarily in charge as the Fund looks for a permanent head.

Camdessus, 66 and mid-way through his third term, put in a final appearance at the helm of the world's premier lending body at a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development meeting in Bangkok.

As is customary at the IMF when the managing director is away, his deputy takes over as acting head, according to Fund spokesman Graham Newman.

A permanent successor to Camdessus will be selected by the IMF's 24-seat executive board, which represents the Fund's 182 members.

But in fact the choice is made behind the scenes by the governments of the IMF's largest stakeholders. By tradition the IMF managing director is a European, with the World Bank headed by an American.

For the moment, acknowledged a senior IMF official who asked not to be named, "it's true there is no consensus" on a replacement for Camdessus.

"But there's no crisis. What is important is that the one who is chosen enjoys the confidence of all".

The IMF on three occasions has been led by an interim managing director pending the appointment of a full-time chief, he recalled.

Fischer, a naturalised American, has been deputy since 1994 and has had ample experience charing the executive board and negotiating with financially troubled member countries in Camdessus' absence.

As interim leader, one of his most pressing tasks will be to work out an arrangement with Moscow under which IMF credits to Russia can resume.

So far the only official candidate to succeed Camdessus is Caio Koch-Weser, State Secretary in the German Finance Ministry, who has yet to win the necessary backing to secure the post.

Germany maintains he has the support of France and the United States, although Koch-Weser, a long-time World Bank staffer, does not appear to have sparked much enthusiasm in either Paris or Washington.

US officials, whose government is the largest IMF stakeholder, have let it be known they are not convinced Koch-Weser is the man for the job.

US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has said the next IMF managing director will have to have sufficient stature to oversee reform at the Fund and to win the confidence of all shareholders.

In the aftermath of recent financial crises in Asia, Brazil and Russia, Summers has argued for a slimmed-down IMF that concentrates mainly on financial surveillance and short-term lending. AFP