“China signaled it’s preparing for its first new central bank chief since 2002 as an official newspaper said Zhou Xiaochuan will step down from his position next month.
The China Securities Journal, published by the state-run Xinhua News Agency, didn’t attribute the information to anyone in its Feb. 2 profile of Zhou, governor of the People’s Bank of China. The ruling Communist Party previously indicated in November that Zhou would leave, without saying when, by omitting him from its central committee list.
The successor to Zhou, 65, whose decade of service makes him the longest-tenured PBOC chief, will help decide the pace of loosening controls on interest rates and capital flows. China’s benchmark stock gauge, the Shanghai CompositeIndex (SHCOMP), has gained 24 percent since Dec. 3 on optimism the world’s second- largest economy is rebounding from growth at a 13-year low last year.
“The central bank governor change will be part of China’s government reshuffle in March,” with Zhou reaching retirement age, said Zhu Haibin, chief China economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Hong Kong. The successor “has to follow Zhou’s uncompleted reforms in liberalizing China’s interest rates and opening up the capital account,” Zhu said.
The PBOC news office didn’t immediately respond to faxed questions from Bloomberg News about how much longer Zhou will serve. Under Chinese law, China’s central bank governor must be named by the premier and endorsed by the National People’s Congress. The annual gathering of the full legislative body is in March….”
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