Shahid Khaqan Abbasi

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Shahid Khaqan Abbasi (Urdu: شاہد خاقان عباسی)(born December 27, 1958) is the current Federal Commerce Minister of Pakistan^[1]. Abbasi is also the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Pakistan Airline Airblue.^[2]

Abbasi got his early education from Lawrence College, Murree and then went to America for further studies.He attended the University of California, where he obtained a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering.He went on to obtain a Master in Science in Operations Research from George Washington University. Abbasi also holds a MBA from Stanford University.

He is politically affiliated with the center right party PML-N, where he is a senior leader. He is the son of Air Commodore (retd) Khaqan Abbasi, a prominent businessman turned politician who was a pilot in the Pakistan Air Force and the Federal Minister for Industries and Production in General Zia-ul-Haq’s cabinet in the 1980s. Khaqan was a serving MNA and Federal Minister in Zia-ul-Haq’s cabinet when he died tragically in the Ojhri Camp incident. His son Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has built the Murree-Kahuta area as their political stronghold and has never lost an election since. He won the general elections in 1988, 1990, 1993, and 1997, the latest one being in 2008.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was imprisoned by the General Pervez Musharraf government, as he was the Chairman of the PIA, when Musharraf's plane was denied landing on the Jinnah International Airport, Karachi on his way back from Sri Lanka on October 12, 1999. The government put pressure on him to give a testimony against the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but Abbasi refused. He was imprisoned for around two years before being acquitted of all charges in March 2001.

In the 2008 general elections, Shahid Abbasi was again elected a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from the traditional Abbasi constituency of NA-50 Rawalpindi-I (Murree-Kahuta area). He was then made the Federal Minister of Commerce in the Yousaf Raza Gillani cabinet.