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IMF / LAGARDE
STORY: IMF / MANAGING DIRECTOR
TRT::45
SOURCE: IMF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: NATS
DATELINE: 5 JULY 2011, WASHINGTON, DC
1. Wide shot, car pulls up and Christine Lagarde exits
2. Med shot, Christine Lagarde walks into IMF
3. Zoom out, Lagarde shakes hands with Shakour Shaalan, Dean of the IMF Executive Board
4. Med shot, Lagarde shakes hands with First Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky
5. Wide shot, Lagarde, Lipsky and Shaalan leave
Christine Lagarde has a full agenda as she begins her term as the new International Monetary Fund Managing Director. Lagarde arrived early Tuesday for her first day at the Fund.
Attention is now shifting to the priorities that await the first woman to head the institution since its creation in 1944.
“The IMF has served its 187 member countries well during the global economic and financial crisis, transforming itself in many positive ways. I will make it my overriding goal that our institution continues to serve its entire membership with the same focus and the same spirit,” Lagarde said as she accepted the nomination by the IMF’s 24-member Executive Board.
“As I have had the opportunity to say to the IMF Board during the selection process, the IMF must be relevant, responsive, effective, and legitimate, to achieve stronger and sustainable growth, macroeconomic stability, and a better future for all,” she added.
Ms. Lagarde was appointed for a five-year term following a month-long selection process that started on May 20 following the resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
She arrives as the global economy is being buffeted by continued uncertainty in Europe, uprisings in the Middle East, signs of overheating in some fast-growing emerging market economies, and rising commodity prices that pose a particular challenge for low-income countries.
“The Fund has a lot on its plate with an uneven world recovery, the reopening of global imbalances, potentially destabilizing capital flows, high levels of unemployment, rising inflation, and difficult country cases,” Lagarde said.
One of the uncertainties clouding the outlook is the continued sovereign debt crisis in Europe. The most acute problems are in Greece, where the government is trying to secure domestic political backing for a strengthened package of measures to put its economy on a more secure footing.
As finance minister of France during the global financial crisis, the 55-year old Lagarde is very familiar with the problems faced by the euro area.
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