Be careful with the numbers. Behind the impartiality of the figures, there is often a catch. Indeed, the deception. It is the suspicion that will dominate this year's autumn meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, faced with accusations that, as the independent cabinet Wilmer Hale argues, the rankings of the report “Doing Business 2018” have been artfully falsified by the secretary general Kristalina Georgieva, the Bulgarian economist who took over from Christine Lagarde. The reason? Favoring China, a mortal sin these days in Washington's eyes.
This is no small matter, as demonstrated by the fact that the United States and Japan (the IMF's second largest contributor) intend to ask for the resignation for the second time, already rejected by the Europeans, France in the lead, but with the support of Italy. The Old Continent intends to hold out, also to interpret the wishes of Emerging Countries for a precise political reason: tradition has it that the president of the Fund is chosen by the USA, but the director general is a European, a choice that reflects outdated balances, given the growth of Asia.
But why the US wants Georgieva's head? Let's go back to 2017, when the economist sits at the top of the World Bank and is about to update the "Doing Business" report, i.e. the list of countries according to the degree of support for economic activity, in all its aspects: from taxation to justice, from the efficiency of bureaucracy to labor relations and so on. In short, one of those lists that seem destined for the newspapers but which actually weigh heavily on the investment choices of multinationals and funds that often include them among the selection criteria.
This is enough to understand that pressure and recommendations are wasted when it comes to summarizing. But in 2017/18 the going gets particularly tough. Beijing says it believes its ranking of number 78 does not take due account of the reforms of recent years. And it's not an academic request, because it comes at a delicate moment. In the same days, in fact, Donald Trump, engaged in his anti-institution crusade, makes it known that he is against the IMF's capital increase, even though it is necessary to help several countries get out of the recession. Only China, with discretion, makes it known that it is ready to put its hand in the wallet. As long as the "bank is understanding".
Alas, things get complicated. The president, the Korean Jim Yong Kim, warns his colleagues that Beijing even risks losing other positions. What to do? Some suggest combining China's data with those of the semi-autonomous territories of Hong Kong and Macau. Georgieva rejects such a crude solution: she takes over the dossier and, with some methodical corrections here and there, manages to push China upwards. She imprudently: in a note she thanks the authors of the report "for having done their part in defense of multilateralism". In return, she receives the decisive push to rise to the top of the IMF. She's not bad for a lady who graduated from the Karl Marx Institut in Sofia under the strictest regime of the communist world. One that before leading the World Bank, she opened her first current account at the age of 34, once she landed at the London School of Economics on a scholarship.
The case exploded on 9 September when the WilmerHale experts activated by Washington presented a monumental investigation (80 documents) to demonstrate the bad faith of Kristalina Georgieva who indignantly rejected the accusations. And he points out that the promotion of Beijing is not an isolated case: what about, for example, gods Saudi Arabia steps forward protected by the lobby of Jareed Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, passed in front of Jordan thanks to the certainly not disinterested interest of executives who later left the World Bank?
La Cold War between Beijing and Washington, in short, has invaded the statistics area. A big problem because, as Olivier Blanchard who was the chief economist of the IMF underlines, "trust in the work of the Fund is decisive for its credibility". But, from Lithuania to Jamaica, there are not a few cases of reports by the Fund rigged to favor an understanding with creditors.
