Dr. Youssef Botrous Ghali, Finance Minister and the chairman of the fiscal and monetary policies commission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been awarded the best Finance Minister in 2009 in Africa and Asia, in a pool conducted by "African Banker" journal, which is considered one of the most outstanding journals specialized in following and analyzing performance of financial and banking sector in Africa, this is according to a poll conducted annually by the journal. Most of economic officers, senior executive officers, senior managers of financial institutions, central and commercial banks, and major companies operating in Africa and senior experts and observers of economic affairs participate in the poll.

Annually during the IMF and the World Bank's meetings, The journal awards prizes for the best Finance Minister, the best central bank's governor, the best banker and the best development bank in recognition of their efforts, uniqueness and their leadership in their areas and updating them to commensurate with global developments.

According to an announcement by the journal, Dr. Ghali won the prize, in recognition of his efforts in developing the performance of the Egyptian Ministry of finance, specially, Egyptian Tax Authority, and upgrading staff level, which brought the Ministry's performance level to become a model in both Africa and Asia. Therefore he became one of the most influential figures in the region's business climate and economic activity. Goodall Gondwe, Malawi Finance Minister, won the same prize in 2008.

Dr. Ghali received the prize in a special ceremony on the sidelines of the joint meetings of IMF and the World Bank held in Istanbul, Turkey.

Dr. Ghali asserted, in his speech to the plenary session of the joint meetings of IMF and the World Bank, the importance of strengthening the IMF's role in supporting sustainable and balanced growth of the global economy. Stressing that the Fund's success in supporting the policies of world economic recovery after the global financial crisis would emphasize the IMF's legitimacy and credibility in addressing the crisis and other future crisis.

Dr. Ghali said that the fund's efficiency in addressing global crisis depends of several factors, most importantly, the rapid provision of the required financial resources for lending countries experiencing severe crisis in cash liquity and the availability of consessional lending instruments to developing countries, allowing them to deal with the global financial crisis repercussions, indicating to the IMF's role in providing social protection in the poorest countries, especially during global crisis.

Dr. Ghali said that the IMF's fiscal and monetary policies commission asserted that the effectiveness of the fund's role in advancing sustainable and balanced economic growth, requires: First: developing the IMF's governance system, especially increasing share of the emerging countries in votes shares to commensurate with their growing economies. Second: expanding the IMF's oversight role from the narrow conception of controlling exchange rates and balance of payments to include surveillance over banking system and financial markets. Such sectors caused the last global financial crisis, due to the absence of the effective control. Third: supporting the fiscal and the monetary policies required to realize sustainable and balanced growth.

He added that, with the global financial crisis retreat and the IMF's role in funding faltering economies would decline, the IMF's oversight role would be increased to diagnosing financial and economic imbalances in a country or a group of countries, which may have implications on the global economy once again.