REGION C – ASIA

THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC

(April 14-15, 1912 – North Atlantic Ocean)

Tharman Shanmugaratnam

(Chairman, Monetary Authority of Singapore)

ROTHSCHILD OWNED & CONTROLLED CENTRAL BANK

The Official Story

THARMAN SHANMUGARATNAM
(Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, 2011)

Tharman Shanmugaratnam (born 25 February 1957) is a Singaporean politician and economist who has been serving as Senior Minister of Singapore since 2019 alongside Teo Chee Hean, Coordinating Minister for Social Policies since 2015 and Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) since 2011. He is also serving as Deputy Chairman of GIC, the country’s sovereign wealth fund and chairs its Investment Strategies Committee.

An economist by profession, Tharman has been active in both the public and private sectors, both domestic and abroad. He has spent most of his working life in public service, in roles principally related to economic and social policies.

Tharman previously led the G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance. Tharman earlier chaired the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the International Monetary Fund’s key policy forum, for four years—the first Asian chair.

Since January 2021, he also co-chairs the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Global Financing for Pandemic Preparedness and Response alongside fellow economists Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Lawrence Summers. In March 2022, Tharman was appointed as a member of the United Nations’ High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism. He also chairs the Group of Thirty, a global council of economic and financial leaders from the public and private sectors and academia. In addition, he co-chairs the Global Education Forum, and the Advisory Board for the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Report (HDR). He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Board of Trustees.

He had served as Deputy Prime Minister between 2011 and 2019, Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies between 2015 and 2019, Minister for Finance between 2007 and 2015 and Minister for Education between 2003 and 2008. Tharman has been the Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Taman Jurong ward of Jurong GRC and as an advisor of the Jurong GRC Grassroots Organisations. He made his political debut in the 2001 general election, and has been re-elected four times at subsequent elections in 2006, 2011, 2015 and 2020.

Other national and international appointments

Tharman has been the chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) since May 2011. He is appointed as the Deputy Chairman of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) as of May 2019, and chairs its Investment Strategy Committee.

Tharman led the SkillsFuture programme, launched in 2014 with the aim of developing skills of the future, and opportunities for life-long learning and job upskilling among Singaporeans. He subsequently chaired the tripartite Council for Skills, Innovation and Productivity (CSIP) until May 2017.

He currently also chairs the Economic Development Board’s International Advisory Council, and the International Academic Advisory Panel that advises the Government on strategies for the university sector.

In April 2017, Tharman was appointed by the G20 to chair a G20 Eminent Persons Group on Global Financial Governance. In Oct 2018, the Group proposed reforms for a more effective system of global development finance and for financial stability. Tharman also succeeded Jean-Claude Trichet as Chairman of the Group of Thirty, an independent global council of leading economic and financial policy-makers from January 1, 2017.

Tharman had previously been appointed by his international peers as Chairman of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), the key policy forum of the IMF, for an extended period of four years from 2011; he was its first Asian chair. In announcing Tharman’s selection, the IMF said that his “broad experience, deep knowledge of economic and financial issues, and active engagement with global policy makers will be highly valuable to the IMFC”.

Since 2019, Tharman has been the co-chair of the Advisory Board for UN’s Human Development Report. He co-chaired with Thomas Piketty in 2019 and Michael Spence for the 2020 edition, and is co-chairing the Advisory Board for the 2021/22 edition with Michele Lamont.

In May 2019, Tharman was admitted to the World Economic Forum Board of Trustees.

Among his other roles, he chairs the Board of Trustees of the Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA), which seeks to uplift educational performance and aspirations in the Indian Singapore community. He also chairs the Ong Teng Cheong Labour Leadership Institute.

In January 2021, Tharman was appointed by the G20 to co-chair the G20 High Level Independent Panel (HLIP) on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, together with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Lawrence Summers. In March 2022, Tharman was appointed as a member of the United Nations’ High Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism.

As of 2022, he currently chairs the National Jobs Council which is aimed at rebuilding skills and jobs for Singaporeans in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Wikipedia