New Pakistani cabinet announced

Mr Aziz is credited with helping to improve Pakistan's economy

Pakistan's new prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, has retained the finance portfolio in his new cabinet.

No major changes were announced in the 32-member cabinet, which was unveiled in Islamabad on Friday.

Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri retains his post ahead of a summit with India over the weekend.

Mr Aziz, a former banker with Citibank, was elected prime minister last Friday having been backed for the post by President Pervez Musharraf.

In one change from the government headed by his predecessor Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao replaced Faisal Salkeh Hayat as the interior minister.

Mr Sherpao is an ethnic Pashtun from the North West Frontier Province and was water and power minister in the previous government.

Mr Hayat will now be minister in charge of Kashmir Affairs.

Economic tsar

Mr Aziz is credited with reforming Pakistan's economy, battered by international sanctions imposed after the country tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

His election was boycotted by the opposition, which dismissed the process as undemocratic.

Mr Aziz was handpicked by President Musharraf to replace his first prime minister, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali.

But he had to be elected to the national assembly in a by-election and Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain served as premier in the interim.

He has served under General Musharraf since a bloodless military coup in 1999.

The BBC's Paul Anderson in Islamabad says Mr Aziz is not expected to provide an alternative centre of power in Pakistan.