Biographical Note

H.E. Dr. Srgjan Kerim was elected President of the sixty-second session of the United Nations General Assembly on 24 May 2007.

A seasoned diplomat, economist, scholar and businessman, Dr. Kerim brings with him a wealth of experience in international political and economic affairs and extensive knowledge of the United Nations system. From 2000 to 2001, Dr. Kerim was Foreign Minister of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in which capacity he also served as Chairman of the South-East European Cooperation Process. He then became his country’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, from 2001 to 2003, during which time he served as vice-chairman both of the International Conference on Financing for Development (Monterrey, 2002) and of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002). In addition, he was a member of the group of facilitators of the President of the fifty-sixth UN General Assembly, focusing on UN reform, and was a co-organizer of the Regional Forum on Dialogue of Civilizations (Ohrid, 2003).

Over the course of his distinguished career spanning more than three decades, Dr. Kerim also represented his country as Ambassador to Germany, from 1994 to 2000, and to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, from 1995 to 2000. During this period, from 1999 to 2000, he served as Special Envoy of the Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe.

Earlier, during his political career in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), Dr. Kerim held the posts of Assistant Minister and Spokesperson in the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 1989 to 1991. Before that, he was Minister for Foreign Economic Relations of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia (SFRY), from 1986 to 1989.

In the field of academia, Dr. Kerim was a professor of international economic affairs with the Faculty of Economics of the University of Belgrade. In addition, he was a visit­ing professor at the University of Hamburg (Germany) and at New York University. He has lectured widely on Balkan issues, is the author of nine books dealing with international politics, economics and youth, and has written more than 100 scholarly papers, many of which have been published in countries across Europe. He holds a doctorate in international economics from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Belgrade and is fluent in English, French and German as well as Serbian, Croatian and Bulgarian.

Since 2003, Dr. Kerim has been General Manager of Media Print Macedonia in Skopje, and in 2004 he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Politika Newspapers and Magazines in Belgrade. He has been serving as General Manager for South-Eastern Europe of the WAZ Media Group, based in Vienna, since 2006.

Born on 12 December 1948 in Skopje, Dr. Kerim is married with three children.