China reshapes economic team to battle trade
BEIJING: Xi Jinping reshaped his core economic team yesterday, promoting two trusted, US-educated lieutenants to key positions at a time of escalating trade tensions with Washington and concerns over a growing debt mountain.
Parliament approved the nomination of Xi’s influential adviser Liu He, a Harvard-educated Communist Party official who as vice premier is expected to oversee the financial and economic sectors.
The deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), Yi Gang, was elevated to head the central bank, replacing Zhou Xiaochuan, another advocate of reforms who had held the job since 2002.
The appointments were made at an annual session of the National People’s Congress that has boosted Xi’s influence on the world’s secondlargest economy, with presidential term limits abolished and his name added to the constitution.
The reshuffle gives Xi trusted hands at the economic controls as China faces the prospect of a tit-for-tat trade war with the US and concerns that ballooning debt has made the country vulnerable to a potential crisis.
Liu travelled to Washington earlier this month and met with US officials at the White House, but his trip has not stopped Trump from considering new trade measures against China.
“The most important task is carrying out a stable monetary policy, and at the same time pushing forward financial reform and opening, while maintaining financial stability,” Yi told reporters after his appointment.
“There will be a series of reform and opening policies and measures to come,” Yi said, according to the central bank’s news outlet Financial News.
While at the PBOC, Yi has called for greater market access for foreign investors and further internationalisation of China’s currency.
At a press conference earlier in the annual parliamentary session, Yi said the central bank would work to push through reforms that will bring about “equal treatment for domestic and foreign investors”. — AFP