PBOC refutes rumor about replacement of bank governor

People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, denied that its head Zhou Xiaochuan was leaving, following a media report that Zhou may step down from his post.

"There is no such thing," the PBOC told Reuters on Thursday.

Zhou, 66, an advocate of pro-market financial reforms, may lose his job in a reshuffle, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Wednesday.

Zhou might be replaced by Guo Shuqing, a former securities regulator who is currently governor of East China's Shandong Province, the paper quoted unnamed officials.

Zhou, who has led China's central bank since 2002, has been the architect of broad financial reforms that have spawned fledgling capital markets, liberalized some interest rates and broken the peg between China's yuan and the US dollar.

Christian Lundblad, professor of finance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said if Zhou left it would increase uncertainty about whether China wanted to slow the pace of reforms designed to open the economy.

Zhou was reappointed as the PBC chief in March 2013, although he had already reached the normal retirement age of 65 for officials.

"We do not think a change in leadership at the central bank would suggest anything about a switch in the orientation of macroeconomic or monetary policy," Nicholas Consonery, director for Asia at the Eurasia Group, said in a note.