Washington: The head of the IMF Crystalina Georgieva on Thursday denied independent investigations who discovered that in the previous work at the World Bank, he pressed staff to change reports to avoid Chinese anger.
The World Bank announced Thursday that it immediately stopped its business report after the investigation found irregularities in the 2018 and 2020 editions.
The leading report occupies the country’s rank based on business regulations and economic reform, which has led the government to jockey for higher places to attract investors.
According to investigation, Beijing complained about the 78th rank on the list in 2017, and the following year’s report would show Beijing falling further in the ease of ranking business.
Washington-based development work staff is preparing the 2018 edition while leadership is involved in sensitive negotiations to increase its loan capital, which is hinged in accordance with China and the United States.
In the last weeks before the report was released at the end of October 2017, World Bank President Jim Kim and Georgieva, during the CEO of the Bank, asked the staff to see updating the methodology in connection with China, according to China Investigation by Wilmerhale law firms.
Kim discussed the ranks with senior Chinese officials who were disappointed with the country’s rankings, and his maid raised the problem of how to increase it, according to a summary of the probe, released by the World Bank.
Georgieva punish a World Bank Senior Official to “misrepresented bank relations with China and failed to appreciate the importance of business reports carried out to the country,” according to an investigation that analyzed 80,000 documents and interviewed more than three dozen current employees and former lenders.
In the midst of pressure from management above, the staff changed some input data, which drives Chinese rankings in 2018 by seven places up to 78 – the same as the previous year.
The World Bank senior official said Georgieva thanked him to “do his role for multilateralism,” said the investigation.
Georgieva then visited the manager’s house responsible for the report to take a copy, and thank you for helping “resolve the problem.” Georgieva, a Bulgarian national who took the IMF leader in October 2019, denied investigation.
“I did not agree fundamentally with the findings and interpretation of data irregularities because it was related to my role in the 2018 World Bank Business Report,” he said in a statement.
“I already have an early briefing with an IMF executive board about this problem.” Paul Romer, a Nobel Prize winner who served as Head of World Bank Economist at the time, resigned in January 2018 after notifying a reporter that the methodology for ranking was changed in a way that could give the impression of the results because of that.
Political consideration.
At that time, the World Bank was hard denied the political influence of ranking.
The investigation found that Kim and his help applyed “pressure – directly and indirectly” to staff to change Chinese rankings, and even delay the issuance of the report.
This is considered one of Kim’s signature achievements that he pastes an agreement to increase the historic $ 13 billion World Bank resources, which requires support from US President Donald Trump who oppose concession loans to China, and from Beijing who agreed to pay more for loans .
The investigation also found “improper change” in a 2020 report affecting the rankings of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan.
Simeon Djankov, an official named Investigation, openly accompanying organizations that questioned other aspects of the report, including the implicit bias against lower business tax, even called them “Marxists” at the 2019 conference.
One of the targets of the attacks, Justin Sandefur from the Global Development Center, has written about the problem with constant change in the methodology that causes an accurate shift in rankings reflecting the position of the country, including a large increase for India and a decrease in Chile.
Nadia Daar, Head of Oxfam International’s Washington DC Office, praised the decision to memo report that said the index “encouraged the government to adopt destructive policies that worsened inequality.”
The IMF head refused to change the WB report to appease China
