Brazil's Murilo Portugal set to replace Carstens

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Murilo Portugal has been nominated to succeed Agustín Carstens as a Deputy Managing Director of the IMF. In announcing the proposed appointment, Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato said Portugal, until recently the deputy minister of finance in Brazil, "is ideally qualified to succeed" Carstens, who resigned October 16 to join the transition team of Mexico's President-elect Felipe Calderon.

De Rato said that Portugal, 58, "possesses economic skills and rich experience in the government of a major emerging market economy and, in addition, knows the Fund extremely well, having served as an Executive Director for seven years" between 1998 and 2005. He also was an Executive Director of the World Bank Group between 1996 and 2000.

In accepting the proposed appointment, Portugal said he was delighted at "the prospect of coming back to work at the Fund, an institution with a superb staff and a fine tradition of consensus building. I regard this as a rare opportunity to serve the IMF's 184 country members at a time of great importance for the Fund as it implements its Medium-Term Strategy." He said he hoped his experience as a member of the Executive Board for seven years and as a...