New SBP deputy governor assumes charge

KARACHI: Dr Murtaza Syed took over the responsibilities of the deputy governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) for a period of three years, a statement issued by the central bank said on Tuesday.

Dr Syed took the charge on Monday, January 27, 2020, it added. The new deputy governor has more than 20 years of experience in macroeconomic research and policy making. He worked with the International Monetary Fund for 16 years before joining the SBP.

Most recently, he served as the adviser at the IMF’s Institute for Capacity Development; overseeing the planning and implementation of the IMF training and technical assistance programmes around the world.

Earlier, he was deputy division chief in the IMF’s strategy, policy, and review department and was involved in IMF programmes and surveillance of various emerging markets and advanced economies, including Colombia, Cyprus, the Euro regime, Japan, and Korea.

Dr Syed also served as the IMF’s deputy resident representative in China between 2010 and 2014 and as the IMF Mission chief to Macao.

He started his career at the IMF in the fiscal affairs department before moving to the Asia and Pacific department, where he worked on a variety of emerging markets and developing countries, the statement said.

Dr Syed started his career in the late 1990s as a senior policy analyst at the Islamabad-based Human Development Center under former federal finance minister Dr Mahbub-ul-Haq.

Later, he worked for the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London, the UK’s premier public policy think-tank, where he conducted research projects on business investment and employment behaviou,r as well as evaluating two large Latin American antipoverty programmes.

Dr Syed has PhD in economics from Nuffield College at the University of Oxford. He has published papers on a variety of macroeconomic issues, including fiscal and monetary policy, financial stability, economic crises, investment, demographics, poverty and inequality. He has also delivered lectures on public policy at Cambridge and Oxford universities, it added.