Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer will become a candidate to head the International Monetary Fund, Israeli media reported Saturday evening.
The Finance Ministry confirmed that Fischer has indeed submitted a request, Channel 10 news reported. Nominations for the top job closed Saturday morning.
RELATED:Fischer coy on bid for IMF top jobStanley Fischer biding his time on IMF bidLast month, Fischer refused to rule out accepting
the position of IMF managing director should he be
elected after the close of nominations.
Speaking at
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s 41st annual board of governors meeting,
Fischer said, “All of the press has been very nice compared to what is usually
in the Israeli press, but when I was job hunting at MIT, the professors there
taught: ‘Don’t accept a nomination you haven’t been offered yet.’” Zambian-born
Fischer, 67, a former deputy head of the IMF, added, “I will say this: I really
love this job [as Bank of Israel governor]. We’ll see what
happens.”
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde remains the most
likely nominee for the position, which was vacated after the resignation of her
compatriot Dominique Strauss-Kahn two weeks ago to concentrate on battling
sexualassault charges in New York.
Fischer also addressed GDP forecasts
for 2011 and 2012, saying that predictions could be updated as early as the end
of next week.
“Our forecast for 2011 was 4.5 percent growth, but it’s
bound to be higher,” he said. “We will probably adjust the 2012 forecast as
well. The OECD just raised its 2011 forecast for Israel to 5.4% growth, [but] we
think that may be a bit high.”
Nadav Shemer contributed to this report.