Michael Bloomberg sought to woo New York voters by stressing his business acumen.

In the end, this seems to have won over floating voters in the close-run race, convincing them of the need for economic leadership following last month's terrorist attacks.

An estimated 100,000 jobs have been lost in the city since 11 September as tourism and financial services have been hit hard.

A slowing economy, falling revenues and a multi-billion dollar budget deficit are just some of the challenges the New York mayor will face.

Business acumen

"The economy is very important now and a business background is really what is needed," said Ruth Levine, a retired secretary who voted for Mr Bloomberg.

Even former mayor Rudy Giuliani has said that Mr Bloomberg has "the financial and economic expertise New York needs. He understands business. He understands jobs. He has the right plans to rebuild."

Earlier this year, New York may have seemed well equipped to withstand the creeping slowdown in the US economy.

Even before the 11 September attacks, firms had started to lay off staff and the process has accelerated since then.

Filling the gaps

The new mayor must negotiate with government agencies, business and unions to direct the rebuilding of lower Manhattan and fill the gaps in the city's budget.

He opposed rival candidate Mark Green's plan to set up a new city agency to draw companies back to lower Manhattan area.

Mr Bloomberg's view is that the future for the downtown area should be decided by companies not politicians.

The city faces a revenue shortfall of $1.6bn for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends 30 June 2002, according to Mr Bloomberg's predecessor, Rudy Giuliani.

The former mayor had ordered a hiring freeze and imposed a 15% spending cut for most city agencies.

Knifing bureaucracy

Mr Bloomberg is likely to find it difficult to raise money through increasing taxes on business - suffering in the slowdown - and will instead also look to wield the knife on the city's bureaucracy.

A plan released by the New York congressional delegation has said the city would suffer more than $105bn in losses over the next two years.

Three days after the attack, Congress passed a $40bn aid plan for defence, security, clean-up and reconstruction.

About half of this was expected to go to New York as well as Virginia and Pennsylvania, the two other states where hijacked planes crashed.

New York Governor George Pataki now wants at least $34bn more to help rejuvenate the local economy.

Billion dollar news man

Mr Bloomberg claims his experience in setting up and running the financial data service Bloomberg will help him revive the city economy.

Mr Bloomberg used a $10m redundancy cheque from Salomon Brothers to set up his firm.

The company provides data and news to investment banks, providing them with tools to analyse markets.

He still owns 75% of the firm, which has $2.3bn in annual revenues and employs a staff of more than 8,000 people.