Mubarak, chosen on Tuesday as Saudi Arabia's new central bank governor, is a US-educated former investment banker with financial markets experience that could help open the Saudi stock exchange to foreign investment. Mubarak in some ways contrasts starkly with his well-respected predecessor Muhammad Al-Jasser. Jasser, who took office in February 2009, was a long-term government official and central bank insider who began his career at the finance ministry in 1981, and served as the central bank's vice governor for almost 15 years. Mubarak comes from outside the central bank and is a private-sector, market-focused figure; he was previously chairman and managing director of Morgan Stanley Saudi Arabia, and has worked in management positions relating to investment management and corporate finance advisory services. He has also held the position of chairman of the Saudi stock exchange. Mubarak's appointment may indicate a desire by the authorities to help the central bank deal with market reforms, analyts said. “We could not have worked with a better person in Saudi Arabia who understands the Wall Street culture like he does his home country,” said one banker who worked with Mubarak at Morgan Stanley. Another person who used to work with Mubarak said he had “an international way of thinking”. Saudi Arabia has been considering a wider opening of its stock market, the biggest in the Gulf, for several years; currently, foreigners have only very limited opportunities to invest through indirect ownership and exchange traded funds that track indexes. There is no clear, public indication from Saudi authorities that restrictions will be lifted any time soon. Officials have said they want to move only gradually for fear of attracting destabilizing inflows of speculative money, and with funds fleeing Western markets because of the euro zone debt crisis, reforms could be particularly risky at present. But expectations are growing. A senior executive of Saudi Arabia's Bakheet Investment Group said in October that he expected the Kingdom to fully open its stock market to foreigners in the first half of next year. The central bank could play an important role in any opening of the market because it would likely be involved in monitoring and regulating capital flows into and out of the country. He served as a member of the Shoura Council advises the government on legislative matters, for six years during which he was the vice chairman of its economic and energy committee.
