"The right moment": Camdessus announces plans to resign, will leave office early in 2000

• Pages: 369-371

Page 369

Michel Camdessus, the Managing Director of the IMF, announced on November 9 that he will resign his position in early 2000 after the IMF Executive Board has named a successor. (The text of Press Release 99/52 announcing Camdessus s plans to resign and including his letter to the IMF Executive Board is available on the IMF's website: www.imf.org.)

Camdessus, who was first appointed to his position in January 1987, said in a statement to the Board that he considered it was "the right moment to pass the baton." The IMF, he said, had "advanced in many fields. We have just established a demanding but exciting work program, and the World Economic Outlook allows us to anticipate favorable trends for the world economy. So I see it as my duty now to suggest that you take advantage of these favorable circumstances to select my replacement and to use these few months to help my successor become familiar with this superb but complex institution."

The IMF's seventh Managing Director, Camdessus was appointed to an unprecedented third term in January 1997. Prior to coming to the IMF, he had served successively as Director of the French Treasury (1982-84) and Governor of the Bank of France (1984-87), as well as Chairman of the Paris Club and of the Monetary Committee of the European Economic Community. He was named Alternate Governor of the IMF for France in 1983 and Governor of the IMF in 1984.

Period of transformation

Camdessus has been Managing Director during a period of momentous change for the international monetary and financial system. When he took office in January 1987, total quotas amounted to SDR 89.9 billion (about $125 billion), compared with SDR 212 billion (nearly $300 billion) today, and membership was 142 countries, compared with 182 now. A marked increase in IMF membership came after the breakup of the former U.S.S.R., as the Baltic countries, Russia, and the other countries of the former Soviet Union became members and the IMF took on new responsibilities in assisting these countries to face the challenges of the transition to a market economy.

From the beginning of his tenure, Camdessus gave a strong emphasis to the social aspects of economic adjustment and growth. One of his first public actions, in June 1987, was to propose a tripling of the size of the Structural Adjustment Facility, Page 370 which had been set...