Renowned economist Dr Shakil Faruqi’s two-volume textbook on banking and finance titled ‘Financial System and Economic Development – Pakistan’ was launched at a ceremony held at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA).
The auditorium at IBA echoed with applause after IBA Karachi Dean and Director Dr Ishrat Hussain, who chaired the evening, congratulated the author on his new endeavour to explain the functioning of the markets of Pakistan.
“It is Faruqi’s love for finance and banking which has led him to make the workings of this sector comprehensible to the ordinary people of Pakistan,” the IBA director said. “He is the man indeed not to sit idle!”
After a brief introduction by IBA Executive Director MBA Saleem Umer, the floor was opened to a panel of renowned finance experts present on the occasion, including State Bank of Pakistan Chief Economic Adviser Riaz Riazuddin, World Bank’s former head of Learning Centre Tariq Hussain and former National Hatton Bank president AB Shahid.
While giving a glorifying review of the book, Tariq Hussain was of the view that the book is unique because it tries to create links and especially the chapter on Islamic Finance is a clear explanation of its functioning in a very neutral fashion.
The review was then complimented by Faruqi taking the floor. Thanking the audience, he read out an excerpt from the new volume and said: “I hope that it will help the finance sector in learning from my experiences of nearly three decades with operations of financial systems in comparative settings.”
The author of the book is currently teaching at the Lahore School of Economics. He did his MA (Economics) with distinction from the Punjab University in 1962. After his PhD (Econ) from the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the World Bank and in his long service worked in a number of countries, including Mexico, Turkey, Iran, and several East Asian countries.
Faruqi has many publications to his name, including Pakistan Financial System – The Post-Reform Era, Maintaining Stability and Growth, and the bilingual Glossary on Banking and Finance, Eng-Urdu, 2000.
Finance students get a handy textbook
