Author: Kumiharu Shigehara
Born: 05/02/1939
Bio: SHIGEHARA Kumiharu has had a distinguished professional career combining his services as an international civil servant with those as a Japanese central banker. 

Shigehara served at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris on four different occasions, with his first service there starting in 1970.  From1992 to 1997, he was chief economist and head of the Economics Department, responsible for running various committees and other bodies where member government officials at the deputy ministerial level gather for economic policy discussion. He was also chairman of the OECD high-level monetary experts group. From 1997 to 1999, he served as deputy secretary-general of the OECD, overseeing its multidisciplinary activities on a broad range of economic and social policy issues in member countries and its co-operative relationships with non-member economies. As such, he represented the OECD at various international meetings at the ministerial level.

Shigehara started his long career at the Bank of Japan started after having received his degree from the University of Tokyo. He served at various posts in both domestic monetary policy planning and international financial policy areas within the Bank, and was chief economist and director general of the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies from 1989 and 1992.

Shigehara is currently president of the International Economic Policy Studies Association based in Paris and is engaged in consultatory activities and delivering speeches and lectures at seminars and conferences in Japan and abroad as well as contributing papers and articles on domestic and international economic and monetary policy issues to Japanese and foreign newspapers and other periodicals. 

Shigehara was honoured with the degree of Doctor honoris causa by the University of Liège under the patronage of the King of Belgium, in recognition of his contributions, as both an international civil servant and a central banker, to international economic policy co-operation for the past three decades. 

Shigehara is of Japanese nationality and has an excellent command of English and French.