Islamabad May 4 2022: Government appoints Dr Murtaza Syed, Deputy Governor State Bank of Pakistan as acting Governor of SBP on completion of Dr Reza Baqir term, says Finance Minister
“As the term of Governor SBP Dr Reza Baqir has come to an end, as per law the senior most Deputy Governor takes over until. Therefore Dr Murtaza Syed, an eminently qualified economist with rich IMF experience, will take over as Governor SBP. I wish him the best in his new role.” says Finance Minister Miftah Ismail.
Dr. Murtaza Syed was appointed as Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan by the Federal Government for a period of three years. He assumed his responsibilities on January 27, 2020.
Dr. Syed has more than 20 years of experience in macroeconomic research and policy making. He worked with the IMF for 16 years before resigning to join the State Bank of Pakistan. Most recently, he served as Advisor in the IMF’s Institute for Capacity Development, overseeing the planning and implementation of IMF training and technical assistance programs around the world. Earlier, he was Deputy Division Chief in the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department and was involved in IMF programs and surveillance of various emerging markets and advanced economies, including Colombia, Cyprus, the Euro Area, Japan, and Korea. He also served as the IMF’s Deputy Resident Representative in China between 2010 and 2014 and as 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.
Dr. Syed started his career in the late 1990s as a Senior Policy Analyst at the Islamabad-based Human Development Center under former Finance Minister of Pakistan, 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 behavior, as well as evaluating two large Latin American antipoverty programs.
Dr. Syed has a 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.
