Piritta Sorsa

Piritta Sorsa has worked with the IMF since 1994. She was the resident representative of the IMF in Bulgaria from 2001 to 2003. In an interview with the "Expat of the week" in The Sofia Echo she said about transition in Bulgaria: "There may still be some difficult times to come because the restructuring of the economy is not finished. But I think it’s the right direction that Bulgaria is going. If you look at the experiences of other transition countries, they have all started to grow and incomes have increased – but they all went through this painful period. Incomes initially went down and then they started to go up, and I think Bulgaria is now already at sort of the upward path. But there is still a long way to go.”

Before joining the IMF in 1994 she held positions at the World Bank (1985-1988 and 1990-1994). From 1988 to 1990 she worked at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). She has published widely on trade and finance issues, including studies on Sub-Saharan Africa, the Baltics and Central and Eastern Europe. She was born in Finland and received a PhD in economics from the Geneva Institute for International Relations.

One of her recent publications is:

Macroeconomic Challenges with EU Accession in Southeastern Europe: An Overview (IMF, 2006)