Endangered species

19 March 2018 By Pete Sweeney Follow @petesweeneypro

Vice Governor Yi Gang was a long shot due to prejudice against “sea turtles”, or Chinese with overseas experience. But as well as a reformer, Beijing wanted someone who could reassure foreign investors. Yi is both. The financial bureaucracy needs more like him.

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On March 19, the Chinese government said Yi Gang would become governor of the People's Bank of China, replacing 70-year old Zhou Xiaochuan.

Zhou was appointed head of the PBOC in 2002 by reformist premier Zhu Rongji. He is credited with a long list of financial reforms and introducing new tools to manage monetary policy.

The government has launched a sweeping reorganisation of its bureaucracy, focusing particularly on the institutions responsible for financial supervision, combining the insurance and banking regulators into a single unit, while building new entities to oversee market stability.

Yi, 60, has been a PBOC vice governor since 2008 and is widely regarded as Zhou's favoured candidate to replace him. Yi was instrumental in steering monetary and currency policy, including a landmark yuan devaluation in 2015.

Yi has a PhD in economics from the University of Illinois and won tenure as a professor at Indiana University. Like Zhou, Yi speaks fluent English.

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