Early euro adoption plans for countries across central and eastern Europe (CEE) have fallen by the wayside, as loose fiscal policies made it difficult to meet the Maastricht criteria for budget balances and inflation. But in 2008, Slovakia bucked the trend and qualified to enter the eurozone in January 2009.

Uganda’s minister of finance, Dr Ezra Suruma, has overseen a year of strong growth in the face of a series of economic head winds. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth looks likely to hit almost 10% in 2008, well above the African average. Construction and services fuelled economic growth in 2007/08 and exports grew by 50%.

For Panama’s public finances, 2008 started and ended well. In February 2008, rating agency Standard & Poor’s raised the country’s sovereign credit rating to BB+, from BB, citing a budget that recorded a surplus of 2.6% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007, compared with a deficit of 5.6% in 2004. Government debt has fallen from 42% of GDP to 32% over the same period.

It has been a tumultuous 12 months for the majority of the world’s finance ministers, with the impact of the credit crisis affecting almost every country to some extent. Here The Banker salutes those that have risen to the challenges posed by this financial turmoil.

After sluggish growth earlier in the decade a broad-ranging financial reform programme initiated in 2004 is slowly but significantly beginning to reshape the Egyptian economy producing record growth, massively increased privatisations and a revamped and reinvigorated banking sector.

Jose Pedro de Morais, the finance minister of Angola, has been a foremost figure in the country’s economic rebirth over the past four years. This powerful technocrat has won the confidence of the president to move Angola forward from decline and dissension to a point where local commentators and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) alike express admiration, bordering on incredulity.

Following the disastrous financial crisis of 2001, Turkey managed to turn its economy around and achieve record annual growth of 7.4% in the five years from 2002-06. While the economy slowed early in 2007 it gained momentum after the elections in July, and although lower-than-trend growth is expected for 2007, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently forecast growth to settle at around a healthy 6% in 2008 and 2009.

Like other major emerging markets, Mexico’s situation in the current crisis is relatively benign and the credit for this rests with a number of ministers, central bank governors and administrations. As a result, Mexico’s interest rates, inflation and financial sector are all in a stable condition.

Attacking corruption, addressing tax evasion and overhauling collection methods as well as applying a healthy dose of bank consolidation have all influenced The Banker’s selection of the world’s leading finance ministers .

Vu Van Ninh
Minister of Finance Vietnam