IMF Institute Expands Its Services At Home and Abroad

• Pages: 342-344

Page 342

Mohsin Khan, Director of the IMF Institute since December 1996, recently spoke with the IMF Survey about the Institute's expanding activities. The Institute offers training in economic management to government officials from all IMF member countries as well as in-house training for IMF economists. Khan, a Pakistani national, was Deputy Director in the IMF's Research Department before assuming his present position.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the demand for training is growing rapidly.

IMF SURVEY: The IMF has recently joined with the government of Singapore to establish a training center in Singapore for Asian government officials, similar to the Joint Vienna Institute (JVI), which was set up to train officials from transition economies in the Baltics, Russia, and the other countries of the former Soviet Union. Why is a second regional training center necessary and what training priorities do you have for Asian government officials?

KHAN: The practicalities of being able to meet the growing demand for training of government officials dictated that we develop ways to provide more training opportunities than we currently have room for at headquarters. For example, for each place in a course we generally have three to four applications. Setting up regional training centers is one solution. The motivating idea behind the JVI was essentially to meet the huge demand for training government officials from the transition countries. As demand continues to grow, the idea of setting up external training centers has extended into other regions. In the Asia-Pacific region, the demand for training is growing rapidly. The IMF-Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI), which will begin operations in May 1998, should help meet some of that demand.

The idea of a regional center in Singapore first came up late last year-actually before I came to the Institute-during a meeting between IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus and Richard Hu, Singapore's Minister for Finance. This suggestion led to extensive discussions during the spring and summer, which came to fruition at the 1997 Annual MeetingsPage 343 when the Managing Director and Singapore's Minister for Finance signed the memorandum of understanding creating the STI. The IMF Institute is responsible for administering the Singapore Training Institute, which will cover the Asia-Pacific region. Its main function is to train government officials in the same areas that the IMF Institute trains...