Islamabad : Pakistan yesterday appointed economist Abdul Hafeez Shaikh as the new chief of the Finance Ministry, where he will strive to maintain fiscal discipline and meet International Monetary Fund targets.
Shaikh, who is not a member of parliament and cannot be appointed minister of finance, was named as adviser to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on finance, Gilani's office said.
Shaikh's appointment has ended almost three weeks of speculation over who would take over at the Finance Ministry after former minister Shaukat Tarin resigned last month to focus on private business interests.
Shaikh was privatisation minister under former president Pervez Musharraf. Analysts said financial markets would welcome the appointment of technocrat Shaikh instead of a politician.
Positive
"The market and investors will take his appointment positively as we have seen him working under the Musharraf regime when the economy was in a recovery phase" said Mohammad Suhail, chief executive of Topline Securities Ltd.
"He played an integral and crucial part as a minister for privatisation ... He's a far better choice than the other names that were being cited," Suhail said.
Pakistan's stock market had closed by the time the announcement was made but the main index ended higher on reports Shaikh had been offered the post and would accept it. The Karachi Stock Exchange's (KSE) benchmark 100-share index rose 26.39 points, or 0.26 per cent, to end at 10,007.87 on turnover of 97.32 million.
