Brazil wants Ilan Goldfajn, former BC president, in charge of the IDB

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The Brazilian government wants to place Ilan Goldfajn, former president of the Central Bank and now director of the Western Hemisphere at the IMF (International Monetary Fund), in the presidency of the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank).

Economy Minister Paulo Guedes presented Goldfajn’s name to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday (14), according to sources in Washington, which would have been received positively.

Guedes went to the American capital to participate in the annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, and took advantage of the trip to try to raise support for a Brazilian name at the head of the IDB – he also discussed the matter with the finance ministers of Chile, Argentina and Colombia.

If approved, Goldfajn will be the first Brazilian in charge of the institution, which finances projects in Latin America. President of the Central Bank between 2016 and 2019, nominated in the Michel Temer government (MDB), he was also chief economist and partner at Itaú. In 2021, he was appointed director of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department.

During the week, Guedes had already stated that he was betting on a person with solid experience both in the public and private sectors to appoint to the IDB, and that he defends that the new president of the institution stay in office for only a term of 5 years. , and not for several terms as was the case before.

“I talked to Argentina, I talked to Chile — who is going to launch a candidate —, and I’m trying to make an alliance with Colombia, it was a good meeting. With Yellen [secretária do Tesouro dos EUA]I pulled her to a corner, I talked, I gave her a name, she apparently liked it, but there is no commitment, she said she would be favorable if she were consulted”, Guedes told journalists on Friday, without revealing who would be the nominee.

Asked if there would be resistance from other countries to support a name nominated by the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government so close to the presidential election, Guedes said that there was a concern to suggest someone less aligned with one or another politician.

“I’m suggesting someone who is more or less outside of politics, who is known in Washington, who nobody is going to say is on the A, B, C or D side. It’s actually a typical Washington picture, a typical profile of international bureaucracy. , in a good way. He has a chance,” he said on Friday.

The vacancy for the presidency of the IDB has been open since Mauricio Claver-Carone, the last elected to the post, was ousted in September before completing his 5-year term after being accused of romantic involvement with a subordinate.

Brazil had another opportunity to nominate someone for the presidency, in 2020, but withdrew after then-US President Donald Trump directly asked Bolsonaro to support Carone. At the time, Marcos Troyjo (now at Novo Banco do Desenvolvimento) and banker Rodrigo Xavier were quoted.

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