Pakistan replaces its executive director at World Bank

On Tuesday, the government officially appointed Tauqir Shah as the new Executive Director of the World Bank, replacing the incumbent before the end of his term in October. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif selected Shah from a panel of three candidates proposed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The other candidates were Sualeh Faruqui, Secretary of Commerce, and Asad Hayauddin, former Secretary of Economic Affairs.

According to the notification by the Establishment Division, Syed Tauqir Hussain Shah, currently the Principal Secretary to the PM, will serve as the Executive/Alternate Executive Director at the World Bank for a four-year term, effective from the date he assumes the new role.

Shah’s appointment had been widely anticipated, given his distinguished track record. He previously served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) from 2015 to 2018. During his tenure, he successfully won the famous Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) countervailing duty case against the European Union. The imposition of countervailing duty by the EU in 2010 had severely impacted Pakistan’s PET exports to Europe.

Shah is the only serving Pakistani bureaucrat to have served as a judge on a dispute resolution panel tasked with resolving a trade dispute between the United States and Russia, involving 23 other parties.

Furthermore, he actively represented Pakistan in Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) negotiations and served as Pakistan’s representative on the Joint Advisory Group (JAG) of the International Trade Centre (ITC).

The notification of Shah’s appointment comes weeks before the end of the current government’s term in office. He is expected to take up his new responsibilities after the tenure of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif concludes. Currently, Naveed Kamran Baloch serves as the Executive Director to the World Bank, and his term is set to end in October.

The decision to replace Baloch was made for domestic reasons, as he had been appointed for a shorter period of 22 months instead of the usual four years. Last year, he received a one-year extension that was supposed to end in October. Baloch played a significant role in Washington and was instrumental in securing emergency funding from the World Bank during the pandemic.

As the Executive Director, Shah will represent Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana, and Algeria on the World Bank’s board. His role will be to advocate for development projects in these countries, provide input on macroeconomic reports, offer opinions on global economic issues, and defend quotas and voting rights of the constituency.

With the establishment division’s notification, Pakistan will now proceed to present a case to the World Bank board for the appointment of a new executive director. Shah will assume his position once the appointment procedure is completed.

Shah’s immediate task will be to ensure the approval of budget support loans from the World Bank, which have been stalled due to strained relations between Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Pakistan has been working to convince the World Bank to separately approve two policy loans, the RISE-II and PACE-II.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2023.

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