* Chakrabarti wins 90 pct of vote, defeating Poland's Belka
* Says wants to retain capacity in Russia
* Has said wants to halt EBRD's rapid expansion
(Adds quotes, details, background)
By Marc Jones
LONDON, May 11 (Reuters) - Britain's Suma Chakrabarti won a
second four-year term as head of the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on Wednesday, easily
defeating a challenge from Poland's central bank governor and
former prime minister Marek Belka.
Chakrabarti, who won some 90 percent of shareholders' votes
at the annual EBRD meeting in London, said the bank must
maintain its presence in Russia, where it suspended new lending
after the West imposed sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.
"We have got a huge challenge ahead of us," Chakrabarti, 57,
a former British civil servant, said after his re-election.
The EBRD continues to manage a Russian loan portfolio of
more than five billion euros, but maturing projects and stake
sales mean this has been falling rapidly and could be gone
altogether in around five years if the rate of shrinkage stays
constant.
"We always review these situations but for now I think it's
important that we maintain our capacity," Chakrabarti said.
"We will always need presence because Russia is an important
place for us. We need to retain our links to the Russian private
sector, Russian administration as well to talk about wider
issues as well beyond just new lending," he said.
The EBRD, set up in 1991 to invest in the former Soviet
economies of eastern Europe, has grown considerably over the
last decade and now spends around 9 billion euros ($10.30
billion) a year in 36 countries from Morocco to Mongolia.
In an interview ahead of the vote, Chakrabarti told Reuters
he would recommend halting the bank's recent rapid expansion and
give more focus to green investments and co-operation with other
development banks, such as the new Asia Infrastructure
Investment Bank (AIIB).
($1 = 0.8741 euros)