Retiring Finance Minister Mathias Cormann will be Australia's pick for the position of secretary-general of the OECD, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced.
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The Western Australian senator is set to leave parliament at the end of the month after 13 years in the role.
It has been widely speculated since he announced his retirement in July he was weighing up a tilt for secretary of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which focuses on promoting trade between its 37 member countries.
"I can think of no finer candidate that Australia can put forward," Mr Morrison said on Thursday.
Speaking in English, French and German, Senator Cormann said he believed he had a "combination of the right skills and perhaps a rare perspective" to lead the intergovernmental organisation.
"I have shared my life in equal measure between Europe and the Asia-Pacific," Senator Cormann said.
Senator Cormann will attempt to travel to Europe in November to participate in the nomination process.
Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham will take over the finance portfolio and replace Senator Cormann as government leader in the Senate.
Senator Michaelia Cash will become deputy leader in the Senate.
There will be a ministerial reshuffle at the end of the year.
Mr Morrison said he'd already spoken to the leaders of other OECD nations about Senator Cormann's nomination.
"I have had numerous conversations over these past many months discussing Mathias's candidacy and it has been well received," Mr Morrison said.
Mr Morrison has asked Labor to support Senator Cormann's nomination.
However the Coalition refused to back former prime minister Kevin Rudd's attempt to become the next secretary-general of the United Nations in 2016.
Senator Cormann ends his seven-year tenure as finance minister days after unveiling a $214 billion budget deficit, with gross debt to hit $1.14 trillion in June 2024.
However Senator Cormann said he took a "great amount of personal pride" in the budget.
"It's a budget that Australia needs right now," Senator Cormann said.
"The work that we have done during our first six years in government, to strengthen our economy, to create more jobs, to repair the budget, has put Australia in one of the strongest positions of any country around the world, as we entered into this crisis.
"I feel satisfied that the budget that we delivered on Tuesday is a very credible, very strong plan to get Australia out of this COVID recession and to get Australians back into work."
