WASHINGTON - The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) new Managing Director Christine Lagarde will make her debut under intense pressure this week, as Greece's financial woes pose an urgent challenge.

The French executive is expected to land in Washington on Monday, the Independence Day holiday for the United States. She will officially begin work on Tuesday morning and hold a news conference on Wednesday.

A "busy work agenda awaits", declared the IMF in its internal online magazine, while it stressed one of Lagarde's most pressing items includes the "difficult policy choices needed to help global recovery (and) address the euro area crisis".