The members of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the policy advisory committee of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have selected Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Finance of Singapore, as Chairman of the Committee. Minister Tharman succeeds Dr. Youssef Boutros-Ghali, Egypt’s former Minister of Finance, who resigned on February 4, 2011.

Minister Tharman has accepted the IMFC’s chairmanship for a term of up to three years.

Minister Tharman has been Singapore’s Minister for Finance since December 2007, having served earlier as the Minister for Education. He is also a member of the Group of Thirty. Before his entry into politics, he held the post of the Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Singapore’s central bank and financial regulator. Minister Tharman’s broad experience, deep knowledge of economic and financial issues, and active engagement with global policy makers will be highly valuable to the IMFC.

The IMFC, comprising finance ministers and central bank governors, is the primary advisory body of the IMF Board of Governors and 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. The IMFC meets twice a year—in the spring and at the time of the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in the fall. Its next meeting will be held on April 16, 2011 in Washington, D.C.