The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has selected Germany's Mr Horst Kohler to be its new managing director, ending months of bickering that included a bruising transatlantic dispute.

An IMF statement said Mr Kohler would succeed France's Mr Michel Camdessus as managing director of the fund, which provides billions of dollars each year in loans to countries in financial trouble around the world.

The IMF executive board did not say when Mr Kohler, a former German finance ministry official who now heads the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, would move from London to Washington. Mr Kohler

was Europe's second candidate to head the IMF. The first nominee, Mr Caio KochWeser, withdrew from the race after the US indicated it would not support him.