Press Release No. <a name="P16_75"></a>04/91

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today selected Rodrigo Rato to serve as Managing Director and Chairman of the Executive Board for a five-year term. Mr. Rato will succeed Horst Köhler, who resigned on March 4, 2004. The 24-member Executive Board selected Mr. Rato in a two-stage process. In the first stage, an informal confidential straw poll produced a majority in favor of Mr. Rato's appointment. Directors then proceeded to formally select Mr. Rato by consensus.

Mr. Rato, a national of Spain, was Minister of Economy and Vice President for Economic Affairs for the Government of Spain between 2000 and 2004. Before that, he was Spain's Minister of Economy and Finance from 1996 to 2000.

In his capacity as Minister of Economy, Mr. Rato was Governor for Spain on the Boards of Governors of the IMF, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, European Investment Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He regularly attended the European Union's Economics and Finance Ministers meetings, and represented the EU at the Group of Seven Finance Ministers meeting in Ottawa, Canada, in 2002, when Spain held the EU Presidency. He was also in charge of foreign trade relations for the Government of Spain, and represented Spain at the World Trade Organization's ministerial meetings in Doha, Qatar, in 2001, and Cancún, Mexico, in 2003.

Mr. Rato has been a member of the Executive Committee of Spain's Partido Popular since 1979, co-founding the party's Economic Commission, designing its economic program, and acting as the party's economic spokesman from 1984 to 1986. He has been a member of Spain's parliament from 1982.

Mr. Rato earned a law degree in 1971 from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, and a Master's of Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley in 1974. In 2003, he earned a PhD in Economics from the Universidad Complutense.