France’s Christine Lagarde promised Brazil to “deepen” International Monetary Fund reforms that would give more power to emerging countries, if she is elected to head the organisation, she said at a press conference on yesterday.

“The main priority ahead is to continue and deepen reforms” in running the IMF, said Ms Lagarde, France’s Finance Minister, as she emerged from a meeting with her Brazilian counterpart Guido Mantega.

Ms Lagarde was seeking to rally support for her bid to lead the International Monetary Fund on a visit to Brazil, one of several emerging nations seeking an end to Europe’s stranglehold on the powerful post.

Ms Lagarde arrived in Brazil on the first stop of an international tour, for a working lunch with Mr Mantega and Brazilian central bank chief Alexandre Tombini.

A 55-year-old former lawyer, Ms Lagarde has been France’s Finance Minister since 2007 and is heavily favoured to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the top IMF official.

Mr Strauss-Kahn, who is also French, has been charged with sexual assault in New York and resigned on May 19. He is on bail in the United States awaiting trial for attempted rape.

By tradition, a European – most often from France – has led the IMF since its beginning in 1945, while the United States supplied the president of the World Bank.

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