February 12, 2003	Wednesday	Zul Hijjah 10, 1423

ISLAMABAD, Feb 11: Mr Khalid A. Mirza has decided to step down as Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, after completion of his first three-year term, according to a reliable source.

He will leave for the World Bank Headquarter in Washington D.C. on Feb. 14 where he will be incharge of Development of Financial and Private Sector for the whole of east Asia and the Pacific.

Mirza, who had left his position as head of International Finance Corporation (IFC), a subsidiary of World Bank, in Bangkok in March 2000 when the stock market in Pakistan was in serious disarray.

He had successfully overcome the crisis and proceeded to develop SECP as a thoroughly professional body devoted to regulation and development of the Commission as the regulator of entire capital market except for the commercial banks, remarked a market expert.

Mr Mirza, according to the source, had been offered second term in SECP by the government. He had expressed his willingness to continue but under certain new terms. He had also proposed that the Chairman of SECP be given the status of State Bank Governor or Judge of Supreme Court as was visualised originally in the SECP papers.

This proposal, he felt according to the source, was meant only to increase the effectiveness of SECP as an autonomous regulator, who is answerable to the Parliament.