BRASIL­IA-Latin Amer­i­ca de­serves a stronger voice at the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, Mex­i­can cen­tral banker Agustin Carstens said yes­ter­day in seek­ing Brazil's sup­port for his bid to lead the glob­al fi­nance or­gan­i­sa­tion. Carstens met with Brazil's Fi­nance Min­is­ter Gui­do Man­te­ga just two days af­ter France's Fi­nance Min­is­ter Chris­tine La­garde vis­it­ed to try to get Brazil to back for her IMF can­di­da­cy. "Latin Amer­i­ca in gen­er­al and Brazil and Mex­i­co in par­tic­u­lar should have a greater lev­el of par­tic­i­pa­tion at the high­est lev­els of the in­sti­tu­tion," Carstens told re­porters af­ter the meet­ing.

"It is very im­por­tant that Latin Amer­i­ca have a stronger voice," he said. For his part, Man­te­ga agreed that the re­gion "should be bet­ter rep­re­sent­ed with­in the struc­ture of the Fund, giv­en its grow­ing eco­nom­ic im­por­tance -- which would mean hav­ing a greater role in the dai­ly de­ci­sion mak­ing." Carstens, 52, has been lob­by­ing for the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor's post va­cat­ed last month by Do­minique Strauss-Kahn af­ter the French­man was ar­rest­ed and charged with sex­u­al as­sault in New York.

The Mex­i­can cen­tral bank chief is to meet here to­day with Brazil's cen­tral bank chief, Alexan­dre Tombi­ni.

A for­mer Mex­i­can fi­nance min­is­ter, Carstens is vy­ing for the in­flu­en­tial IMF post against fron­trun­ning can­di­date La­garde, who has re­ceived the back­ing of oth­er large Eu­ro­pean coun­tries. The IMF is due to pub­lish a full list of can­di­dates by June 17. The fi­nal se­lec­tion is ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced by June 30.

The IMF ex­ec­u­tive board, whose mem­bers rep­re­sent a coun­try or a group of coun­tries, is aim­ing to se­lect the next chief by con­sen­sus, but could re­sort to a vote. (AFP)