southern African countries, into which Egypt was admitted that year. To this day this has provided the basis for an expanded Egyptian presence in the African continent. Early in the following decade and through the joint body created by the US–Egypt Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), Boutros-Ghali was active in advancing the negotiations on the free trade agreement between Egypt and United States. He also headed the negotiations leading to the Qualified Industrial Zone (QIZ) agreement between Egypt, the United States, and Israel, established in 2004. As Minister of Finance, Boutros-Ghali headed the Ministerial Economic Committee in charge of overseeing the design and implementation of Egypt's economic reform programs. He is credited with implementing a series of reforms that helped modernize and reinvigorate the Egyptian economy and deepen its global integration. Chief among these is a major income tax and trade reforms, coupled with deregulation and liberalization in key areas of economic activity. The tax reform program was hailed as one of the most successful reforms among developing countries, which earned Egypt the position of top reformer among developing countries in 2007 by the World Bank. Boutros-Ghali received the Emerging Markets Award for Finance Minister of the Year for the Middle East Region twice (2005 and 2006). Boutros-Ghali also received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2008. On 6 October 2008, Boutros-Ghali was elected chair of the IMF's policy-setting committee the IMFC. He beat India's Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram to chair the 24-member International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) the first chairman from an emerging market economy in the 65-year history of the committee ; Boutros-Ghali was well suited to assume the chairmanship of the IMFC. Having served both at the Fund and as a prominent government official, he was well aware of the concerns of the membership and of the reforms needed at the Fund. As IMFC Chairman, at the height of the international financial crisis of 2008, Boutros-Ghali helped create a consensus among national financial authorities for a coordinated approach, with active IMF participation, to address the fallout in international financial markets. Throughout Boutros-Ghali worked to promote consensus on the Fund's most pressing reform agenda, particularly on governance reforms to enhance legitimacy and evenhandedness in surveillance, establishing a new and sustainable income model for the Fund, and adapting its instruments to better suit the evolving needs of the membership in a global economy. In 2010 Boutros-Ghali