Muhammad Medhat Hassanein, former Minister of Finance of Egypt

Muhammad Medhat Hassanein is Professor of Banking and Finance with the Management Department of the School of Business, Economics and Communication at the American University in Cairo. He is a senior policy analyst with extensive experience in institutional building, macro-policy analysis, financial economics, corporate finance, and international financial management. Between 1999 and 2004, Mr. Hassanein served as the Minister of Finance, Egypt. Prior to this, he worked in the capacity of advisor to government, high-level advisory bodies and the donor community.

During his term as Minister of Finance, he developed and instituted the second-generation set of fiscal public policy reforms for the Government of Egypt. These included, inter alia, tax, customs reforms, reviewing the procurement system in government, revising the pensions system (pay-as-you-go versus fully-funded systems) together with the investment policy of social insurance funds, introducing public expenditure reviews and performance-based budgeting, building design and policies for the formalization of extra-legal entities and securing international and local funding packages for the appraisal and implementation of national projects.

Mr. Hassanein has authored numerous articles and government reports on topical issues in economics, fiscal and monetary policy, finance and banking, macroeconomic reforms, privatization, capital markets and the extra-legal economy in Egypt. He has served as Chairman and Board Member of banks (investment, commercial and development), public holding companies and private corporations