26. People's Bank of China (PBOC)
| Governor: | Zhou Xiaochuan [Biography of Zhou Xiaochuan] |
| Vice Governors: | Su Ning Hu Xiaolian Liu Shiyu Ma Delun Yi Gang Zhu Min |
| Address: | 32 Chengfangjie, Xicheng District, Beijing 100800 |
| Telephone: | 86-10-6619-4114 |
| Facsimile: | 86-10-6619-5370 |
| Website: | www.pbc.gov.cn |
| Branches: | Chengdu, Guangzhou, Ji'nan, Nanjing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Tianjin, Wuhan, Xi'an |
| Departments: | General Office; Legal Affairs; Monetary Policy; Foreign Exchange; Financial Market; Financial Stabilization; Survey and Statistics; Accounting and Financial Affairs; Billing and Accounts; Science and Technology; Currency, Gold, and Silver Bureau; State Treasury Bureau; International Affairs; Internal Auditing; Internal Auditing; Personnel; Research Bureau; Credit Information Supervision Bureau; Anti-Money Laundering Bureau; Propaganda |
|
PBOC Structure Chart [pdf] Summary of PBOC's 2010 Work Plan [pdf] |
|
PBOC was established in 1948 and assumed the responsibilities of a central bank in 1983; its status as a central bank became official in 1995. Modeled after the US Federal Reserve system, PBOC manages monetary policies through various local offices. In 1998, it abolished provincial and municipal branches and instead set up nine regional branches to promote regional economic development and bank efficiency, protect PBOC from interference by local governments, and prevent moral hazard in the financial sector. This move increased PBOC's ability to implement monetary policies and penalize violators of financial laws and regulations.
Realizing the need to strengthen the banking sector and separate regulatory functions from broader macroeconomic policymaking, the State Council removed all regulatory and policymaking responsibilities related to China's banking industry from PBOC in March 2003 and installed these functions in the newly created China Banking Regulatory Commission. For PBOC, the most significant change of the March 2003 reorganization was the drawing of a line between monetary policy and banking supervision. Even prior to these changes, reforms in 1998 allowed PBOC to convert to a more market-based system. The move to shift banks away from PBOC supervision created a policy framework to allow the banks to operate on more commercial terms, permitting banks to conduct more independent feasibility studies on projects and reject loan applications for projects that were not commercially viable. PBOC maintains 2 operations offices, 9 regional branches, 326 prefecture-level sub-branches, and 1,827 county-level sub-branches.
Responsibilities
As China's central bank, PBOC
- Formulates and implements monetary policy;
- Issues and administers currency in circulation;
- Licenses, supervises, and regulates financial institutions;
- Regulates financial markets;
- Manages official foreign exchange and gold reserves;
- Acts as the PRC government's fiscal agent;
- Maintains a national system for payments and settlement and oversees consumer credit and electronic payment systems;
- Collects and analyzes financial statistical data;
- Participates in international financial activities at the capacity of the central bank;
- Oversees the State Administration of Foreign Exchange; and
- Recapitalizes PRC financial institutions when they encounter financial difficulties or have problems related to nonperforming loans.
Priorities
PBOC's priorities for 2009 include:
- Managing liquidity and increasing lending, particularly for mergers and acquisitions (M&A);
- Overseeing domestic lending institutions;
- Promoting financial instrument innovation for debt issuance, asset securitization, and other operations;
- Improving risk management;
- Closely monitoring cross-border capital flows especially with regard to tempering foreign exchange holdings in China against international solvency shocks; and
- Raising the bar for elements of China's financial services framework including improving the development of legal, information management, and security systems.
Return to PART V: State Council 27 Ministries and Commissions