The nominee for US Treasury Secretary, business magnate John Snow, faces a raft of challenges including a shaky global economy but if confirmed he will have one top priority - selling a new tax-cut programme at home.

Analysts say the 63-year-old chairman of rail company CSX Corp, named by President George W. Bush as his choice to succeed the dismissed Paul O'Neill, seems well placed to handle domestic issues, even if he may need new help to burnish his international credentials.

"On the domestic side, I think that because the president has made it plain that he wants a new messenger and not a new message, Snow clearly understands what he is expected to do," said economist Sung Won Sohn of Wells Fargo Bank in Minneapolis. "I doubt that he's going to be influencing the direction of policy very much because that direction already has been set."

On Thursday, Bush appointed Stephen Friedman to take on the job of chief economic adviser at the White House, pointedly noting that Friedman shared his feeling it was "time for a robust growth and jobs policy" - words that are generally taken to mean support for reduced taxation.

Friedman takes over leadership of the National Economic Council from Lawrence Lindsey, who resigned like O'Neill last week at the White House's request.

Friedman brings Wall Street credentials as a former Goldman Sachs chairman to help the tax-cut drive from inside the White House. Snow, meanwhile, is to be the link to Big Business who also has the polish to handle Capitol Hill lawmakers.

Analysts felt the new team offered the potential for operating more smoothly than the old one, certainly on the campaign to push a stimulus plan for as much as $300 billion of tax breaks and other measures over a decade.

"We need tax cuts now and we didn't need to go back to Square One on tax reform, like O'Neill wanted to do," said economist Allen Sinai of Decision Economics Inc. in Boston.

"The administration correctly and well advisedly wants to get a package in place that can stimulate the domestic economy and in turn help a global economy that is looking toward the United States for help," Sinai said, adding he was concerned about worldwide weakness including in Europe and in Japan.

"There's really no time to lose," he said. A report on Thursday from the International Monetary Fund underlined the tremulous state of global economic expansion, cautioning that there were ample reasons to worry.

"While a global recovery has been under way, concerns about its pace and sustainability have risen significantly. There is a risk that further substantial market declines could undermine growth prospects," the IMF said. A day earlier, the World Bank also cautioned there was a "significant risk" a tepid world recovery could backslide into recession.

Sinai said that meant there will be considerable scrutiny on Snow's performance on the international front - an area where O'Neill sometimes ran into problems because of his penchant for plain speaking.

"Snow has been much more involved in the public policymaking process and that will be a benefit to him on the domestic front but his global perspective, like O'Neill's, does not appear to be extensive," Sinai said.

His first appearance on the world stage, if confirmed, likely will be at a meeting of finance ministers of the Group of Seven - the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan - in Paris in early February.

Snow, who must be confirmed by the Senate, will begin receiving briefings next week at Treasury, where there still will be some reshuffling of positions. Deputy Treasury Secretary Kenneth Dam, closely associated with O'Neill, is expected to go and analysts suggested there could be more.

"If Snow wants to bring in someone knowledgeable and well-versed in international matters, that could mean moving (Under Secretary for International Affairs John) Taylor, who has not exactly wowed people on the international stage," Sohn suggested.

Sinai also said that, given the apparent determination to make deep changes intended at least partly to enhance Bush's own chances of re-election in 2004, it was possible that other senior Treasury officials will leave.

"The under secretaries from Treasury, including John Taylor and (Under Secretary for Domestic Finance) Peter Fisher may or may not want to continue and certainly must be considering that," Sinai said, adding that each was competent but might feel it wise to move while the winds of change were blowing.

Both Sohn and Sinai noted that in a $10 trillion economy, a stimulus package of $300 billion, as has been widely talked about, is a relatively modest amount over a 10-year period.

That adds to the impression that O'Neill's dismissal, attributed partly to a reluctance on his part to champion tax cuts that might run up budget deficits, may have been partly a smokescreen. In fact, his failing may have been a lack of the smooth salesmanship the White House sees in Snow and that it hopes can reinvigorate growth.

Analysts said that with US interest rates at a four-decade low, and credit readily available, the only thing lacking for more growth was a pickup in optimism.

"What we're looking at in this economy is not a lack of liquidity, which is there in abundance, it is in fact a lack of confidence, especially on the business side," Sohn said.

"I think the administration is trying to demonstrate that it is doing everything it possibly can to reassure business and investors of its absolute commitment to growth - so that the direction they are pointing toward is actually more important than any amount of dollars and cents about to be pumped into the economy," he added.