Donald Trump has confirmed the 2 November : early 2018, Jerome Powell will replace Janet Yellen to chair the federal Reserve (Fed, american central bank). The arrival of the republican moderate – sometimes described as a flat – head of the financial institution is the most powerful of the planet has caused much ink to flow.
But another monetary institute, equally influential, is poised to see its leader replaced. Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the people’s Bank of China (PBoC), announced on the departure. A 69-year-old, he could retire by the spring of 2018. With him, a page a major transition in china’s economic turn. Arrived in 2002, Mr. Zhou has been a major part of the transformation of the country. And its opening.
Of course, the operation of the PBoC did not have much to do with the Fed or the european central Bank (ECB), tasked to ensure the stability of the price in any independence. Their chinese counterpart is rather an agency charged with implementing the economic policies agreed at the top. Opaque, the key decisions are validated by the president of the Republic, Xi Jinping.
Guidelines contradictory
Nevertheless : very listened to, Mr. Zhou has played a role of advisor to a major. Mastering the codes of the chinese administration, he has promoted the financial reform and opening-up. Since his arrival, China made its exchange rate and has gradually opened up to international financial markets. In 2016, the yuan, has built the special drawing rights (SDR), the currency basket of the international monetary Fund, becoming an international reserve currency. A consecration. Mr. Zhou also has the ear of the central bankers westerners, who consider it as one of their own.
It is, however, regularly encountered the resistance of a part of the communist elite, averse to the liberalization of the banking sector…
