Murtaza Syed takes over as deputy governor of SBP

• Syed was appointed by the Federal Government for a period of three years.
• He worked with the IMF for 16 years before resigning to join the State Bank of Pakistan.

Murtaza Syed has taken over the responsibility as Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the central bank announced on Tuesday.

Syed was appointed by the Federal Government for a period of three years, in pursuance of Section 10(4) of the State Bank of Pakistan Act 1956 (amended). 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.

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.