IMF’s Georgieva to travel to China at end of March – IMF sources

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva will travel to China from March 24 to March 30, IMF sources told Reuters on Friday.

Georgieva will deliver a keynote speech at the China Development Forum (CDF) in Beijing on March 26, and speak at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference on March 30 in the Boao town of Qionghai city, Hainan Province, the sources said, asking not to be identified.

She will also participate in a number of side events and bilateral meetings with the authorities while she is there, the sources added.

Georgieva’s trip to Beijing comes just after China’s new leadership team took office following a parliamentary conference earlier this month, including new Premier Li Qiang and Vice Premier He Lifeng, who replaced Liu He as China’s top economic official.

Georgieva has been pressing China to participate more fully in providing debt relief to struggling countries that borrowed heavily from Beijing, organizing a sovereign debt roundtable discussion that included Chinese officials on the sidelines of a G20 finance leaders meeting in India in February.

China later agreed to provide specific financing assurances to Sri Lanka that is expected to unlock a $2.9 billion IMF bailout program for the embattled island country. But it remains unclear whether Beijing will extend similar assurances and debt principal reductions to other countries in debt distress, including Zambia.

China has insisted that multilateral development banks share in debt “haircuts” for poor countries, a demand opposed by the World Bank, the United States and other wealthy countries and developing countries.

(Reuters)