Peter McPherson, president of Michigan State University who served as the second-highest Treasury Department official in President Ronald Reagan's administration in the 1980s, will serve as a liaison between Treasury Secretary John Snow and military officials in charge of the rebuilding effort, a media report quoted a US government official as saying Thursday.

US Treasury officials have been working on ways to rebuild Iraq's banking system and help a new Iraqi government come up with a new currency, said the report.

As part of the global effort to rebuild Iraq, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have also pledged to send fact-finding missions to Iraq soon when conditions are safe.

Apart from his experience as president of the Michigan State University since 1993, McPherson was an executive at the Bank of America in the early 1990s and deputy secretary of the Treasury Department from 1987 to 1989, where he focused on trade, tax and international issues.

McPherson was the administrator for the Agency of International Development from 1981 to 1987, where, among other things, he oversaw US aid to Africa during the continent's food crisis.

(Xinhua News Agency April 17, 2003)