White House welcomes IMF chief's views at summit

By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday said it welcomed the participation of International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn at a global leaders financial summit next month, but avoided commenting on an IMF investigation into his possible abuse of power.

The White House has declined any public comment on the investigation launched in August by the IMF board of member countries, which includes the United States, into whether Strauss-Kahn abused his position in an affair with a former IMF economist.

The investigation is looking into whether the senior economist received preferential treatment before she took a buyout in August. The former French finance minister is also being questioned about the hiring of a young French intern at the fund who worked on one of his political campaigns.

Strauss-Kahn, who was invited to attend a global summit on the financial crisis in the Washington area on November 15, "has a great deal of experience in these issues and we welcome him at the table for these discussions," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in response to a question about the investigation.

Fratto, speaking at the Foreign Press Center, praised the IMF for its work in dealing with financial crises in emerging economies over recent decades, and said its participation can inform the discussions and decisions of world leaders on how to address the current crisis and prevent future ones.

France, Germany and Britain have called for an overhaul of the current international financial architecture established just after World War Two at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, where the IMF and World Bank were created.

Asked about views that the Bretton Woods system should be reformed or replaced, Fratto said he could not speak for the next U.S. president, who will take office on January 20. But he said there was a "misconception" about the Bretton Woods system.

"We had a system that came out of that conference that broke down nearly four decades ago," Fratto said. "And so it's hard for anyone to talk today about a present Bretton Woods system, it just simply doesn't exist as it did coming out of the Bretton Woods conference at that time," he said.

Since that time, other economic institutions have risen to play a key role in the global economy, such as the World Trade Organization, Fratto said.

"It's a very different time today," he said. "I know that individual countries have different feelings about the IMF and how it should operate."

He said the IMF had done an "excellent job" in trying to promote economic growth and encouraging trade and investment.

(Editing by Neil Stempleman)