Governor takes bow after years of success

His news conference earlier this month will probably be the last one held by Zhou Xiaochuan as China's central bank governor.

On Monday, a new central bank chief may take the baton from him, and the sound foundation laid during Zhou's 15 years of tenure will help inject confidence to achieve further progress in China's financial reform.

Zhou has made some crucial steps and pushed forward reforms in several key fields, such as efforts to promote an exchange rate regime and to improve the yuan's global status through adding it to the Special Drawing Rights basket to better integrate the Chinese economy into the global financial system.

At the news conference on March 9 on the sidelines of the ongoing annual session of the top legislature, Zhou said he expected further opening up of the financial market, and that China will be "bolder" in taking such steps.

China did not achieve the goal of seeing the full convertibility of its currency as scheduled in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), though that was partly due to the global financial crisis in 2008 and world economic downturn that followed.

Nevertheless, the results of Zhou's efforts show that he skillfully pushed forward reforms amid constraints and external challenges.

The central bank later openly discussed policies with the parties involved and started to take prudent steps in the steady opening-up of the domestic capital market. It has also quickened the pace to promote interconnectedness across various markets.

Still, much has yet to be accomplished, and there are new challenges ahead.

As China has enjoyed a rising status in the global market, the situation today is not at all the same as 2002, when Zhou started his tenure. The central bank may also be given greater power to write rules for the whole financial sector.

If Zhou's successor is able to continue the legacy and find a good balance between managing risks, development and stability, more achievements can be expected ahead along China's long path of reform, which, from Zhou's perspective, "is never a straight line".