Press Release No. 06/120

Press Release No. 06/120

Mr. Rodrigo de Rato, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has named Mr. Jaime Caruana to the position of Counsellor and Director of a new IMF department that will be responsible for all aspects of the Fund's financial, capital market, and monetary work.

Mr. Caruana, (54) a Spanish national, is currently the Governor of the Banco de España, Spain's central bank, a position he has held since 2000. In addition to serving on the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, he is also the Chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and, in that capacity, a Member of the Financial Stability Forum. Prior to joining the Banco de España, Mr. Caruana served as Director of the Spanish Treasury and headed investment services and fund management companies for some 10 years. His appointment becomes effective in August.

Announcing the appointment, Mr. de Rato said: "Jaime Caruana has had a highly distinguished career spanning more than 30 years in the public and private financial sector in Spain and on the international stage. I believe that with his mix of private, public, and international experience, Mr. Caruana is ideally positioned to provide the Fund with a very respected and influential voice on financial sector issues, and to lead the new department with vision and skill."

The new department that Mr. Caruana will head will be created from the merger of two existing departments, the International Capital Markets Department (ICM) and the Monetary and Financial Systems Department (MFD). The Managing Director announced the merger in February (See Press Release No. 06/21).

The selection of Mr. Caruana was made following consideration of qualified applicants by an internal staff panel and members of the IMF management team. He will succeed Gerd Häusler, who has headed ICM since its creation in 2001 and who earlier announced his intention to leave the IMF in July 2006, and Stefan Ingves, who headed MFD until his appointment as Governor of Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden's central bank (see Press Releases No. 06/29, 05/223).