Indonesia has voiced its support for the nomination of Kristalina Georgieva, currently chief executive officer of the World Bank, as the new chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to replace Christine Lagarde.

Maritime Affairs Coordinating Minister Luhut B. Pandjaitan said that for Indonesia, Georgieva would be the right person to lead the IMF because as a Bulgarian national, she had a good understanding of developing countries.

"In my opinion, as we often met during IMF-World Bank meetings in Bali [in October 2018], she is the right person to become the chief of the IMF," Luhut said in his office in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Luhut described Georgieva as having an attractive personality and a hard worker. With her background as a Bulgarian national, she supports developing nations, he said.

European Union governments picked Georgieva as the bloc’s candidate to lead the IMF after more than 12 hours of talks on Aug. 2, which highlighted the EU’s internal divisions, Reuters reported.

The 65-year-old World Bank chief executive got the backing of a majority 28 EU states, defeating the Dutch candidate Jeroen Dijsselbloem after two rounds of voting and prolonged negotiations.

Georgieva is a center-right politician who grew up in Bulgaria under communism before a career that brought her to the top of the World Bank and the European Commission.

Last month, Lagarde resigned as the managing director of IMF to take on a new role as the next head of the European Central Bank (ECB). (hen)

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