Russia's new PM: Mikhail Kasyanov

Mr Kasyanov (left) was chosen within hours of Mr Putin's inauguration

Russia's new Prime Minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, is a liberal economist and a technocrat with a good reputation among Western investors.

He is well known in the West from his work over several years as Russia's chief debt negotiator - and he won praise at home in February for a major debt-rescheduling deal sealed with private creditors on favourable terms.

I don't have any concrete ties to any particular financial-industrial group

Mikhail Kasyanov

As first deputy prime minister since January, he has been in charge of day-to-day running of the government and President Vladimir Putin is likely to keep him in that role - primarily as a manager rather than a policy-maker.

Mr Kasyanov won overwhelming approval from the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, on Wednesday.

Streamliner: Putin sees Kasyanov as a "strong co-ordinator"

New generation

Russian sources describe Mr Kasyanov as "100% loyal" to the new president, and predict that the two men will work closely together on economic strategy.

Mr Putin has yet to present an economic programme and has no training in economics, though - as he emphasised in his inauguration speech - one of his major objectives is to make Russia "prosperous".

Kasyanov's career

1957: born

1990: Economics Ministry

1993: Finance Ministry

1999, May: finance minister

2000, January: first deputy prime minister

2000, February: London Club debt-rescheduling deal

2000, May: acting prime minister

Mr Kasyanov, meanwhile, has spent 10 years in the economics and finance ministries, but has little experience in other spheres of politics.

His appointment as Prime Minister consolidates a shift in Russia towards a younger generation of political leaders.

Aged 42, he is Mr Putin's junior by five years, and a fluent English-speaker.

'Mr Debt'

Born in 1957, he graduated from Moscow's Automobile and Road Institute, and later worked at Gosplan, the Soviet Union's all-powerful economic planning agency.

He worked in Russia's Economics Ministry from 1990 to 1993, when he joined the Finance Ministry, later becoming Russia's "Mr Debt".

He moved rapidly up the ministry's ranks, becoming deputy Minister, then first deputy minister, and finally minister of finance in May 1999.

Independence

He held on to this post when he was appointed first deputy prime minister in January.

Kasyanov: an energetic negotiator

Mr Putin, who had then just taken over as acting President, described him as a "strong co-ordinator" who would help to streamline economic policy.

Most observers see Mr Kasyanov as a figure independent of Russia's financial clans, who will help Mr Putin eradicate the political influence of the country's super-rich tycoons, or "oligarchs".

"I know a lot of businessmen and well-known entrepreneurs, but I don't have any concrete ties to any particular financial-industrial group," he told a press conference in early April.

A minority of analysts have, nonetheless, suggested that Mr Kasyanov is close to the oligarch, Boris Berezovsky, who exercised a major influence over President Boris Yeltsin's inner circle.

Investor's choice

Mr Kasyanov had been tipped as Russia's most likely future prime minister at least since Mr Putin's election as president in March.

At that time one Moscow-based financial analyst described him as "the most acceptable candidate for investors".

One Western businessman described him as "a man who has great energy, who does not take 'No' for an answer".

During his tenure as first deputy prime minister he has been fortunate enough to preside over an economy buoyed by high oil prices - with low inflation, a stable rouble and rising output.

However, analysts say further economic reform is necessary if the economy is to flourish in the long term.

The government also faces further talks on debt, this time with the Paris Club of creditor governments.

Talks with the International Monetary Fund on a resumption of its lending programme - stalled since the Russian financial crisis of August 1998 - are also on the agenda. They will call upon all Mr Kasyanov's celebrated powers of negotiation.