Mexican economist Moises Schwartz has been designated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as director of its Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), Mexico’s Financial Secretary Agustin Carstens Carstens announced on Monday.

• Schwartz will resign in January 2010 from his post as president of the National Committee for Retirement Savings (CONSAR), and take office in February 2010, sources with the IMF said.

Schwartz has been CONSAR president since December 2006. Before that he served as executive director of the IMF, chief of staff of the finance secretariat, director of macroeconomic analysis and director of economic studies in Mexico’s Central Bank.

• He earned a bachelor degree in economics from Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

The IEO was established in 2001 to conduct independent and objective evaluations of fund policies and activities of the IMF. It is fully independent from IMF’ s management.