SINGAPORE – Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam has been appointed the next chairman of the prestigious global body of top financial experts known as the Group of Thirty (G-30).
He will be the first Asian to chair the G-30.
The Washington-based private group is made up of leading economists and policymakers from across the world, and seeks to deepen understanding of international economic and financial issues.
Mr Tharman’s term will begin on Jan 1, 2017 and run for five years, the G30 said in a statement on Wednesday (Nov 30). He succeeds outgoing chairman and former European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet.
Mr Tharman, 59, is also Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies, and chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
He said of his appointment: “It will be a real privilege to succeed Jean-Claude Trichet, whose knowledge, wisdom and warmth have made him a role model for so many of us, in the G-30 and beyond.
“I look forward to working closely with my colleagues in the Group as we continue to inform and influence dialogue within the global economic and financial community.”
G-30 Board of Trustees chairman Jacob A. Frenkel welcomed Mr Tharman’s appointment, saying: “We are confident that Tharman will successfully pursue the Group’s mission: to deepen understanding of key international economic and financial issues and, thereby, contribute to the quality of public policy decision making.”
Mr Frenkel, who chairs JP Morgan Chase International and is a former Bank of Israel governor, was himself reappointed to chair the G-30 board.
The G-30, which was set up in 1978, hosts invitation-only forums for senior industry leaders. It also puts out reports on topical issues such as unregulated shadow banking and capital markets, and oil’s impact on the global economy, that are studied in depth by policymakers.
Its members are from both the public and private sectors, and include influential economists such as Dr Paul Krugman, Mr Lawrence Summers and Dr Raghuram Rajan, former Federal Reserve governor Ben Bernanke, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, and People’s Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan.
In 2008, Mr Tharman became the first Singaporean to be inducted into the G-30. He was Singapore’s Finance Minister from 2007 to 2015, and chairman of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) international monetary and financial committee from 2011 to 2015.
This article was first published on November 30, 2016.
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