IMF board plans to move promptly to name new chief

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it will move in a "timely" manner to name a successor to managing director Rodrigo Rato who is due to step down in October.

The IMF executive board said it met on Monday to begin the selection process for naming a replacement after Rato's surprise announcement late last month that he would step down.

"Directors will meet again to finalize the selection procedure expeditiously to ensure a timely decision in an open and transparent manner," the executive board said in a statement.

The board also said that under IMF rules any member of the board could offer a nomination for IMF managing director, "regardless of nationality."

Under a long-standing and increasingly criticized gentleman's agreement, Europe chooses the head of the IMF and the United States picks the president of the World Bank, the IMF's sister institution.

Rato, who has cited personal reasons for his decision, is stepping down in late October, two years before the Spaniard's mandate is to expire.

As European Union finance ministers weighed possible candidates to head the IMF, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was lobbying for former French finance minister and Socialist mainstay Dominique Strauss-Kahn to fill the post.