IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva called out on pressure to lift China ranking in report
- The World Bank has decided to abandon its ‘Doing Business’ report entirely, after an investigation found severe ethics issues
- China’s position in the 2018 ranking of economies should have been seven places lower, at No. 85 instead of No. 78, the organisation said in a review
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva was called out on Thursday by the World Bank, her previous employer, for applying pressure to boost China’s position in a ranking of economies.
Georgieva said she disagreed with the findings, compiled by an outside law firm at the World Bank’s direction.
The World Bank found such serious ethics issues in its probe of the “Doing Business” report that it decided to abandon the series entirely, a statement released in Washington showed.
China’s position in the 2018 report, released in October 2017, should have been seven places lower – at No. 85 rather than remaining at 78 – the World Bank said in a review released in December.
“The changes to China’s data in Doing Business 2018 appear to be the product of two distinct types of pressure applied by bank leadership on the Doing Business team,” the World Bank said in a report on Thursday.
The bank cited Georgieva, along with an adviser, for “pressure” to “make specific changes to China’s data points in an effort to increase its ranking at precisely the same time the country was expected to play a key role in the bank’s capital-increase campaign.