| Headline: Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan, Finance minister of the year Source: Euromoney Date: September 2001 Author: Jules Stewart If ever a finance minister was in the firing line, Shaukat Aziz is that man. The 30-year veteran of Citibank is saddled with the task of selling yet another military government in Pakistan to a sceptical international investor community.
It is just as well that Aziz radiates the demeanour of a man who remains calm under fire. On one flank he is confronted by the IMF demanding deep structural reforms and economic progress before agreeing to move on from standby loans to a critical $1.5 billion medium-term poverty reduction and growth facility (PRGF). At the same time Aziz has to fend off attacks at home from sections of the press, heady with a new freedom from censorship, stirring up criticism of the man they accuse of setting out with his begging bowl for loans for a nation already overburdened with external debt. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||