SBP gets new boss

KARACHI: The President has approved the appointment of  Shahid Kardar as the new governor of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

According to a Bloomberg report, 57-year-old  Kardar, a director at Royal Bank of Scotland Pakistan, will replace Syed Salim Raza, who quit in June.

The immediate challenge to the newly appointed governor is maintaining equilibrium between providing financing to the government and controlling inflation.

Updated from print edition (below)

SBP operates without governor

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has been functioning without a governor for the past one week due to the federal government’s inability to appoint a new governor.

According to the SBP, the federal government is supposed to appoint a governor for the bank within three months of the last governor’s departure, but the government has been unable to designate an eligible candidate for the job. Deputy Governor SBP Yaseen Anwar was appointed as the acting governor of the central bank after the resignation of former governor Saleem Raza but his tenure ended on September 2, three months after the governor’s resignation.

Shahid Kardar, a former Punjab minister of finance, has been tipped as the next governor but his appointment has not been confirmed to date.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2010.