Youssef Boutros Ghali

Subject: Youssef Boutros Ghali 13/11/2010, 7:09 pm

Youssef Boutros Ghali (يوسف بطرس غالي) (born 1952) has been Egypt’s Minister of Finance since 2004.
Youssef Boutros-Ghali was born in Cairo, Egypt,and received his education at Cairo Universitywhere he obtained his B.A.in Economics in 1974. He subsequently obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1981. He was also aLecturer and Assistant during his stay at MIT. His uncle, Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali, is a former Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Upon graduation, Boutros-Ghali joined the International Monetary Fund as an EP (EconomistProgram) and progressed to become Senior Economist. He worked in both area andfunctional departments: first in the Middle East Department (MED) and later inPolicy and Development Review (PDR) on Asian, Latin American and Middle Easterncountries. He gained profound knowledge of the economic problems and policychallenges of countries as diverse as the Sudan,the Ivory Coast, the Philippines, China,Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. He alsodid background work on the Latin American debt crisis of the early 1980s.
After leaving the Fund in 1986, Boutros-Ghali wasappointed as Economic Advisor to Egypt’sPrime Minister and to the Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (1986-1993), where he took a prominentrole in negotiating the 1987 and 1991 stand-by arrangements with the Fund andthe debt rescheduling agreements with the Paris Club. The reform programsinitiated then ushered a turnaround in the Egyptian economy and laid thegroundwork for economic reforms that are being pursued to this day. Thereafter,Boutros-Ghali was appointed Minister of State for the Council of Ministers andMinister for International Cooperation (1993-1996), where he continued to beactive in overseeing program relationship between Egypt and the Fund. He wassubsequently named Minister of State for Economic Affairs (1996-1997).Thereafter he assumed the position of Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade(1997-2001), and later Minister of Foreign Trade (2001-2004).
A firm advocate of trade liberalization, asMinister of Foreign Trade, Boutros-Ghali participated in the Seattle,Doha, and Cancun ministerial meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and played a prominent role inlaunching the Doharound. He was also instrumental in concluding the Euro-MediterraneanPartnership Agreement between Egyptand the European Union in 1998. Through the joint body created by theU.S.-Egypt Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), Boutros-Ghali wasactive in advancing the negotiations on the free trade agreement between Egypt and United States. He also headed thenegotiations leading to the Qualified Industrial Zone (QIZ) agreement between Egypt, the United States, and Israel, established in 2004.
As Minister of Finance, Boutros-Ghali heads theMinisterial Economic Committee in charge of overseeing the design andimplementation of Egypt’seconomic reform programs. He is credited with implementing a series of reformsthat helped modernize and reinvigorate the Egyptian economy and deepen itsglobal integration. Chief among these is a major income tax and trade reforms,coupled with deregulation and liberalization in key areas of economic activity.The tax reform program was hailed as one of the most successful reforms amongdeveloping countries, which earned Egypt the position of top reformeramong developing countries in 2007 by the World Bank.
Boutros-Ghali received the Emerging Markets awardfor Finance Minister of the Year for the Middle Eastregion twice (2005 and 2006). He also received an honorary Doctoral Degree fromthe Heriot-Watt Universityin Edinburgh onJuly 7 2008.
Boutros-Ghali is the author of variouspublications on timely topics, particularly on exchange rate and monetarypolicy, external debt problems and debt relief issues, IMF programs, fiscaldiscipline and exchange rate market reforms.
On October 6, 2008, Boutros-Ghali was electedchair of the IMF's policy-setting committee. He beat India's Finance MinisterPalaniappan Chidambaram to chair the 24-member International Monetary andFinancial Committee (IMFC). Boutros-Ghali is well suited to assume thechairmanship of the IMFC. Having served both at the Fund and as a prominentgovernment official, he is well aware of the concerns of the membership and ofthe reforms needed at the Fund. As IMFC Chairman, Boutros-Ghali will work topromote consensus on the Fund’s most pressing reform agenda, particularly ongovernance reforms to enhance legitimacy and evenhandedness in surveillance,establishing a new and sustainable income model for the Fund, and adapting ourinstruments to better suit the evolving needs of the membership in a globaleconomy.
Boutros-Ghali speaks fluent Arabic, English,French, Italian and Spanish. He is married and has three sons, Nader, Youssef,and Naguib
See also

List of Copts
List of Egyptians
Minister of Finance (Egypt)
Collège de la Sainte Famille

He is the biggest autocratic in Egypt