Press Release No. 99/41

Press Release: Interim Committee Selects U.K.'s Brown as New Chairman

September 10, 1999

The members of the International Monetary Fund's Interim Committee have selected Gordon Brown, the U.K.'s Chancellor of the Exchequer, as Chairman of the Committee. Mr. Brown succeeds Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Italy's former Minister of Treasury, Budget and Economic Programming, who resigned in May 1999.

Mr. Brown has been Chancellor of the Exchequer since May 1997. He has also been a Member of the U.K. Parliament since 1983. As a parliamentarian, Mr. Brown has held a number of senior Labour Party posts, including those involving economic and trade matters.

The Interim Committee was established in October 1974 to advise the IMF's Board of Governors on supervising the management and adaptation of the international monetary system, as well as deal 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 who are Governors of the IMF, Ministers, or others of comparable rank, and reflects 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 Committee usually meets twice a year; in the Spring and ahead of the Annual Meetings in the autumn. Its next meeting is in Washington, D.C., on September 26, 1999.