Abdul Qadeer Fitrat Named
new head of Central Bank of Afghanistan

Embassy of Afghanistan, Washington D.C.
Newsletter Vol. 49 December 2007

With wide and popular support from the Afghanistan Parliament upon nomination by President Hamid Karzai, Mr. Abdul Qadeer Fitrat has recently been named the new Governor of the Da Afghanistan Bank, the Central Bank of Afghanistan. Mr. Fitrat joins the Central Bank with a wide experience in the banking and financial services sector. He previously served as First Deputy Governor and Governor of the Central Bank in 1995 and 1996 respectively. Governor Fitrat also served as Chairman of Bank-e-Millie Afghan in Kabul in the early 1990s and as an Economic Consultant to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington in late 1990s. More recently, Mr. Fitrat served as a consumer banker to First Union National Bank in Northern Virginia from 2000-2001 and was an Advisor to the Executive Director at the World Bank for the last three and a half years.

During a series of introductory meetings in Washington, D.C. earlier this month, Governor Fitrat met with various officials of the U.S. government including Deputy Secretary of Treasury Robert Kimmitt, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs Daniel Sullivan, and several senior USAID officials to discuss areas of cooperation between the U.S. government and the Central Bank.

Governor Fitrat holds a Bachelors degree in Economics from the International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan and a Masters degree in Social & Applied Economics with an emphasis on monetary economics from the Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.