London, May 19: A British citizen of Indian origin Suma Chakrabarti was chosen out of a group of five candidates to become the new president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Sixty-three government shareholders of the bank chose Chakrabarti as the new head. ccording to the Wall Street Journal, Chakrabarti is the top civil servant at the Ministry of Justice in UK and prior to that was a top official at the Department for International Development. The outcome marked a rare setback for the French and German governments as they had backed Philippe de Fontaine Vive Curtaz, a French citizen who works at the European Investment Bank. The EBRD was established in 1991 to help countries emerging from Communism make the transition from centrally planned to market economies. Although most of its shareholders are European governments, its largest single shareholder is the US government.
