LAHORE: Acting Governor Yasin Anwar has been appointed the 17th Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). He was appointed on the advice of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani who was approved by President Asif Ali Zardari. His three-year term as the SBP Governor started on the 19th of October, 2011.
Governor, State Bank of Pakistan
The post has been vacant for the last three months as Shahid Hafeez Kardar resigned from the central bank’s top slot on July 18 over policy differences with the government.
On the 19th of July this year, Mr. Anwar took charge as Acting Governor of the SBP for the second time during the last four years. Earlier in 2010, he served in the same capacity for over three months, after the resignation of the SBP Governor, Syed Salim Raza.
Having 33 years of international banking experience, Mr. Anwar has also been serving as Deputy Governor of the SBP since March 2007. During his professional career, he served with some of the world’s leading financial institutions such as M/S Kraken Financial Group, London, United National Bank Limited (UK), Riggs & Co, London, Merrill Lynch & Co, New York/London, and Bank of America.
Mr. Anwar, an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania, has good relations with financial institutions in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.
Mr. Anwar is the fourth incumbent to hold this post in the past three and a half years of the present government.
“Earlier this month he announced an unexpected 1.5 per cent cut in the interest rate to 12 per cent. The business community hailed the decision and the stock market registered a boom, but economists were critical, warning it could exacerbate inflation as the rupee has shown weakness against the US dollar,” AFP reports.
