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Jean Lemierre - President of the EBRD |
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Monday, 14 January 2008 |
Jean Lemierre is one of four Frenchmen currently at the
head of important international financial institutions
(Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the IMF; Jean-Claude Trichet at
the ECB, Pascal Lamy at the WTO). The European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development was set up in 1991 with the
particular aim of helping the Eastern countries newly freed
from Communism to get their economies up and running as
quickly as possible.
The EBRD is owned by 61 countries, which include
Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA and other non-
Europeans, and two international organisations. Members
are divided into contributors and recipients, of which there
are 28. All recipients must be “committed to democratic
principles”. Lemierre is already the third Frenchman to
preside over the bank: the first was Jacques Attali, who
imported the expensive white Italian marble to decorate the
bank’s London headquarters.
Born in 1950, Lemierre has spent his whole career in
finance. He got his diploma from the Paris Institute of
Political Studies and went on to the elite training school for
civil servants, ÉNA, graduating from it in 1976 – only
brilliant students achieve this at such a young age.
He was soon busy in the Ministry of Finance, where
senior posts included Head of the Tax Policy Administration
and Head of the Internal Revenue Service. He became
President of the Economic and Financial Committee of the
EU and was elected President of the Club de Paris, a coterie
of international financiers which provides debt relief or debt
cancellation for indebted countries.
He took up the presidency of the EBRD in 2000 and has
been very successful in carrying out the bank’s main
mission: the encouragement of new initiatives and
enterprising start-ups in the recipient countries. His selection
of beneficiaries has been rigorous and continuous
supervision of the bank’s loans is carried out by members of
the 1,300-strong staff. As a result, the bank has built up
profits and reserves of billions of euros and Lemierre has
been eager to increase the bank’s investments outside the
major cities and capitals of its countries of operations.
Indeed, the 2007 Annual meeting was held well outside
of Moscow, in Kazan, the capital of the Russian Republic of
Tatarstan. At the meeting one item of discussion was what to
do with the bank’s growing profits, with some shareholders
calling for the payment of a dividend. Lemierre has
ambitious plans for the bank and is ensuring that investments
have a particular focus on energy efficiency and the fight
against climate change; infrastructure and energy
development, particularly of non-polluting energy sources.
The pursuit of these goals will absorb the funds of even such
a wealthy bank as the EBRD. And as its operations move
east, the fight against corruption, mainly successful in the
past, must be continued. The pursuit of these goals will
absorb the funds of even such a wealthy bank as the EBRD.
And as its operations move east, the fight against corruption,
mainly successful in the past, must be continued.
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