State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in collaboration with Pakistan Business Council (PBC) hosted a seminar and panel discussion on “Managing Crises in Emerging Markets” on Friday, February 14, 2020 at State Bank of Pakistan Head Office in Karachi.

The seminar kicked off with recitation of Holy Quran after which Governor SBP, Dr. Reza Baqir delivered the welcome address. Later, Deputy Director IMF, Mr. Athanasios Arvanitis gave a presentation followed by a discussion. The discussants included Mr. Ehsan Malik, CEO Pakistan Business Council; Khurram Husain, Financial Analyst at DAWN newspaper and Sakib Sherani, Chief Executive Macro Economic Insights. The panel discussion concluded with a Q & A session.

Prominent members from business and banking community, media persons, academia and financial analysts attended the seminar.

Dr. Reza Baqir is the Governor of State Bank of Pakistan. Dr. Baqir has eighteen years of experience with the IMF and two years with the World Bank. He has served as the Head of IMF's Office in Egypt and Senior Resident Representative. His research has been published in top economic journals including the Journal of Political Economy and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Dr. Baqir holds a Ph.D in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Mr. Athanasios Arvanitis is Deputy Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the IMF. He has extensive policy and operational experience at the IMF and currently oversees the work on several countries in the region. He has also served as Deputy Director of the European Department.

Mr. Ehsan Malik has been the Chief Executive Officer of Pakistan Business Council (PBC) since January 2016. Prior to this, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Unilever Pakistan and spent 24 years with Unilever in UK, Egypt and Sri Lanka.  Mr. Malik is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales, and an alumni of the Wharton and Harvard Business Schools.

Mr. Khurram Husain is a leading business and economic journalist in Pakistan. He is associated with Dawn newspaper and writes editorials and op-eds on economic, social and climate issues. Previously, he has taught at Lahore University of Management Sciences; and was the Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, where he carried out research on the history of Pakistan's relationship with the IMF.

Mr. Sakib Sherani is a renowned economist in Pakistan with wide-ranging experience in public policy, macroeconomic analysis, corporate management and financial services. Mr. Sherani is the founder and Chief Executive of Pakistan's first independent research house, Macro Economic Insights that provides risk advisory to clients on Pakistan’s economy.