Former economist for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Ahsan H Mansur on Tuesday was appointed as the new governor of Bangladesh Bank.
He succeeded Abdur Rouf Talukder.
The law relating to the age limit of the central bank’s governor was changed for Mansur’s appointment, given that his age is 72.
According to previous laws, the age limit is 67 years for the appointment of central bank governor.
Mansur is also executive director of Policy Research Institute (PRI), a non-government research firm.
The Financial Institutions Division (FID) of the Finance Ministry took initiative to amend the laws.
Officials said that after approval of the advisory council, the FID issued a presidential ordinance, which was then approved by the president.
The FID then issued an order on the appointment of Mansur as the new governor.
It may be noted that many countries, including India and Sri Lanka, have no age bar on appointment to the post of governor.
Sources at FID said that a proposal was sent to the interim government’s Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus.
After his approval, the proposal was sent to President Mohammed Shahabuddin.
An ordinance was issued after the president approved the proposal.
The process was completed by Tuesday.
This would be the second instance of amending the law.
Earlier, the government amended the law to appoint former governor Fazle Kabir for the second time in July 2020.
Who is Ahsan Mansur?
Mansur started his career as a lecturer of economics at Dhaka University in 1976.
He left for Canada for higher studies in economics in the same year, according to the website of the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh.
As a graduate student and research assistant, he was also offering regular economics courses at the undergraduate level at the University of Western Ontario, Canada (1978-81).
During his long career at the IMF, Dr Mansur worked in Middle Eastern, Asian, African and Central American countries.
He worked in important functional departments (fiscal affairs and policy review and development departments) and area departments (Middle East and Central Asia and Asian departments) of the IMF.
He also served as IMF senior resident representative to Pakistan during 1998-2001 and as fiscal adviser to Bangladesh’s Minister of Finance in 1989-91.
During his assignment in Bangladesh, Mansur was primarily involved with the successful introduction of value added tax (VAT) in Bangladesh in 1991.
Most recently, he served as the division chief of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Division and was the IMF Mission Chief for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman.
After taking early retirement from the IMF, with a view to establishing an institute aimed at policy analysis, in coordination with other professionals, Dr Mansur joined the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh as its founder director and executive director.
Mansur has published extensively in various journals and is also a prolific author.
