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Director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, as confirmed by its official biography and checked in October 2026.
Jihad Azour in a photograph dated August 6, 2014. File portrait. SeussRahi · CC0 · Original photograph retained; scaled for display without cropping.
He oversees the fund’s work in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus. The IMF biography records service as Lebanon’s finance minister in 2005–2008. In this report he presents the fund’s regional economic assessment.
IMF warns dwindling energy cushions leave regional economies exposed