Press Release No. 08/234

Press Release No. 08/234

The members of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the policy steering committee of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have selected Dr. Youssef Boutros-Ghali, the Minister of Finance of Egypt, as Chairman of the Committee. Dr. Boutros-Ghali succeeds Mr. Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Italy's former Minister of Economy and Finance, who resigned in May 2008.

Dr. Boutros-Ghali, the first Committee Chairman from among the emerging market and developing countries, has accepted the IMFC's chairmanship for a term of up to three years.

Dr. Boutros-Ghali has been a member of the Egyptian government since 1993. Prior to becoming Minister of Finance in July 2004, he held a range of ministerial positions in the areas of international cooperation, economic affairs, and foreign trade. Dr. Boutros-Ghali has an intimate knowledge and first-hand experience of the Fund and its relations with member countries, both as a former IMF staff member and as chief negotiator of Egypt's fundamental reform programs implemented with IMF support in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The IMFC was established in September 1999 to replace the Interim Committee set up in 1974 and strengthen the role of the primary advisory committee of the IMF's Board of Governors. The IMFC advises the Board of Governors on supervising the management and adaptation of the international monetary system and dealing with sudden disturbances that might threaten the stability of the system. The Committee deliberates on the principal policy issues facing the IMF.

The Committee has 24 members, reflecting the composition of the IMF Executive Board. Each member country that appoints, and each group of countries that elects, an Executive Director, appoints a member of the Committee. Committee members are Governors of the IMF, Ministers, or other officials of comparable rank. The Committee usually meets twice a year—in the spring and ahead of the Annual Meetings in the autumn. Its next meeting will be held on October 11, 2008 in Washington, D.C.