New Czech president is Adelaide professor

Dr Klaus at the University of Adelaide in 2001.
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Tuesday, 11 March 2003

Newly elected president of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus is also an Adjunct Professor in the University of Adelaide's School of Economics.

Dr Klaus, who was Prime Minister of the Czech Republic from 1992-97, replaced Vaclav Havel on February 28.

Dr Klaus's election to president means that he will postpone plans to visit Adelaide this year.

A prominent political figure who helped Czechoslovakia's transition from communism to democracy in the late 1980s, Dr Klaus was Czechoslovakia's first non-communist Finance Minister after 40 years of communist rule. Ironically it is with the help of the communists that Dr Klaus has now gained power.

Dr Klaus is an internationally regarded economist who has studied in Czechoslovakia, Italy and the United States, and has been widely published. He has acted as a Governor of the World Bank, and was formerly Head of the Department of Macroeconomic Policy in the Institute of Forecasting at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.

In July 2001 he was appointed Adjunct Professor to the University of Adelaide's School of Economics. Other adjunct professors include former New Zealand Prime Minister and former Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Mr Mike Moore.

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