Zhou to stay on as central bank boss

Media reports are swirling that Zhou Xiaochuan will keep his job.

Doubts about Zhou’s continuing as governor of the People’s Bank of China surfaced late last year when he was removed from the elite 205-member Central Committee of the Communist Party during a handover of power last November.

Until now, membership has been a condition of holding a ministerial-level job such as the PBOC governor.

Highly placed sources said Zhou could keep the job he has held for 10 years as part of Beijing's insistence of maintaining the pace of financial reform.

These same sources said Zhou would also be made a vice chairman of parliament's top advisory body to give him national-level leader rank that would exempt him from compulsory retirement.

Sources said is no better candidate than Zhou who is needed to carry out currency reforms.

Zhou, 65, is the architect of wide financial reforms that gave rise to fledgling capital markets, liberalized some interest rates and removed the peg between the Renminbi and the U.S. dollar.