NEWSMAKERS- Dallas Fed's McTeer Still "Looking Good"
- Norways's Gjedrem Re-appointed
- Albania Gets New Central Bank Chief
- Key Role for Gopinath at RBI
- Cuba should Stick with US Dollar, says Soberon
- Odds on Feldstein to Succeed Greenspan?
- Central Banker for President of Ukraine?
- Report Claims Israel's Klein Asks for a Second Term
- China's 'Father of the Euro' University to Open
- Former Bank of Italy Governor Gets a Pacemaker
- Sveriges Riksbank Alters Management Structure
- Danmarks National Bank Appoints Head of Secretariat
- The BOJ is a Mystery even to the Japanese
- Interview with ECB'S Gonzalez-Paramo
- Bank of Thailand Facing Lawsuit -
- - And Computer Hacking
- Is
Zhou Following in Volcker's Footsteps?
DALLAS
FED'S McTEER STILL "LOOKING GOOD"
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Bob McTeer resigned on Thursday
4
October to become chancellor at Texas A&M University, ending a 36-year
career in the Federal Reserve System. In a statement posted on the Dallas
Fed’s website titled “Goodbye and howdy” McTeer says
in the first line,
“Well, what did you expect? I had to make my move while I still
have my
looks”.
NORWAYS'S
GJEDREM RE-APPOINTED
Norges Bank governor Svein Gjedrem was appointed to a second term on Friday
29 October. Press reports described the move as a vote of confidence for
his
management policies.
Shyamala Gopinath,
a deputy governor in the Reserve Bank of India, takes
charge of the key departments of monetary policy and internal debt
management this week following Rakesh Mohan’s move to Economic Affairs
secretary in the government. Gopinath will also be in charge of external
investments and operations.
The RBI will have three deputies reporting to Governor Reddy- the other
two
being KJ Udeshi, in charge of banking operations, and Vittaldas, who runds
IT and human resource management.
CUBA SHOULD STICK WITH US DOLLAR, SAYS SOBERON
President Francisco Soberon
of the Central Bank of Cuba has insisted it
would be extremely unwise for Cuba to change the one-to-one exchange rate
to
the dollar after the Cuban people have shown such confidence in the Cuban
government.
ODDS
ON FELDSTEIN TO SUCCEED GREENSPAN?
The re-election of President George Bush sharply narrows the field of
candidates to succeed Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chief when he
retired in January 2006, according to some commentators. A report from
Dow
Jones quotes Steven Cecchetti as opining that Martin Feldstein is
unconditionally the best “candidate”.
According to this report, second place is held by R. Glenn Hubbard, a
former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers who helped draft the
tax-cut plans. Hubbard, 46, is now dean of Columbia University's Graduate
School of Business. Several analysts described him as the most effective
of
the economic officials who served Bush in his first administration.
But where’s the competition? A central banker contact of Newsmakers
from the
US is fond of asking people in America: “who is the current Secretary
of the
Treasury?” Few can answer.
The top two candidates to succeed Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma are
heading for a run-off vote on 21 November, after neither won a majority in
the first round. Former governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Viktor
Yushchenko is one of the candidates. Yushchenko, pro-western reformer, is
pitted against a hardline, pro-Russian candidate.
Sadly the campaign has been disfigured by repeated violations of democratic
procedures such as disruption of opposition rallies, stifling of independent
media and misuse of administrative resources.
REPORT
CLAIMS ISRAEL'S KLEIN ASKS FOR A SECOND TERM
A report by Haaretz Daily claims Bank of Israel governor David Klein
asked
about his chances of being appointed for a second term at the central
bank
during a meeting with Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The report said Netanyahu replied that due to his recent work load he
was
too distracted to focus on the issue. Klein’s five-year term is
set to end
on 7 January 2005.
The press report quoted a spokesman for the bank of Israel commenting:
"We
do not relate to the content of meetings which the governor holds from
time
to time with the Finance Minister."
Other “candidates” for the job of governor include, Haaretz
Daily said, Bank
of Israel deputy governor, Prof. Avia Spivak, Prof. Avi Ben-Bassat, Prof.
Leonardo Leiderman, Prof. Itzhak Swary, and former United Mizrahi Bank
CEO
Victor Medina.
Leiderman, a soft-spoken, pedagogic economist, is said to be a strong
candidate if Klein leaves. He spent four years at the Bank of Israel as
a
member of the central bank's senior board, and was director of its research
department from 1996 to 2000.
Leiderman currently works for Bank Hapoalim as its chief economist.
Commenting on a recent Bank of Israel economic report he told a business
conference in Tel Aviv last week that exports would be key to growth:
"The
biggest potential for Israeli businessmen lies in countries (such as)
Russia, Brazil, China and India," he said.
CHINA'S
'FATHER OF THE EURO' UNIVERSITY TO OPEN
It was announced on Thursday 28 October that the recently established
Mundell International University of Entrepreneurship will open in November.
The university is named after Nobel Laureate Robert A Mundell and is located
in the Zhongguancun area, known as the “Silicon Valley of China”.
It is the
first university designed to foster entrepreneurs in China.
Mundell will be an honorary president of the university, alongside Xu
Jialu,
vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s
Congress.
China’s Xinhuanet news agency reported that faculty for the university
will
include famous Chinese entrepreneurs as well as leading economists including
Michael E. Porter.
Xinhuanet also said Mundell is applying for a Chinese “green card”
and plans
to settle down in the Zhongguancun area of Beijing.
FORMER
BANK OF ITALY GOVERNOR GETS A PACEMAKER
Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who was governor of the
Bank of
Italy between 1979 and 1993, has had surgery to install a pacemaker.
The 83-year-old former premier is expected back at work at the beginning
of
the week, his office said in a statement. He was reported in "good
spirits"
when he talked to colleagues after the operation, the ANSA news agency
said.
The surgery had been set in advance because Ciampi had no major commitments
in the coming days, ANSA said. He was expected to attend Friday's Rome
signing ceremony for the proposed European constitution, the report said.
At a time when many central banks are reorganizing their management system,
senior officials will be interested in recent changes in Sweden.
Responsibility of members of the executive board for preparing matters from
the departments is to be replaced by a responsibility for certain issues,
such as submitting the all-important inflation report.
The Riksbank is managed by an executive board consisting of six members. It
has collective responsibility not only for decisions regarding monetary
policy and the payment system, but also for the operations of the bank as a
whole.
Until now, the division of labour between the members of the board has been
expressed in the form of responsibility for preparing matters regarding the
different departments within the Riksbank, which has led to a direct
connection between individual board members and the respective departments.
This responsibility for preparing matters from the departments will be
replaced by a responsibility for certain issues, such as submitting the
inflation report and suggestions for interest rate decisions or submitting a
draft financial stability report.
The heads of department will then have clearer responsibility for the
day-to-day operations of the bank. A management group will consist of the
heads of the six large departments. The chairman of this management group
will be the head of the General Secretariat, Mats Galvenius. This group will
be responsible for coordinating the bank’s operations.
The purpose of these changes is to attain a clearer allocation of
responsibility between the different members of the Executive Board and the
heads of department, and to ensure coherent and uniform management of the
bank.
This latest decision means that the executive board will have greater scope
to focus their work on the Riksbank’s central policy areas, that is to say,
monetary policy and the task of promoting a safe and efficient payment
system. In addition, the executive board will make decisions on the
strategic aims of the bank’s operations.
The changes will be implemented on 1 January 2005.
DANMARKS NATIONALBANK APPOINTS HEAD
OF SECRETARIAT
As of 1 November, Karsten
Biltoft became head of Danmarks Nationalbank's
Secretariat which, among other things, is responsible for external and
internal communication.
Karsten, aged 42, has held positions at the central bank since 1988, for
the
last four years as head of payment systems. His successor there is Kristian
Kjeldsen ,aged 41. Prevously he worked in financial markets.
VACANCY AT THE BANK OF CANADA
Mark Carney, deputy
governor of the Bank of Canada, has been appointed
senior associate deputy minister of finance.
Doesn’t sound nearly as grand,
does it?
THE
BOJ IS A MYSTERY EVEN TO THE JAPANESE
A recent survey showed
that most Japanese people find the workings of the
central bank a mystery. The nice thing is, the BOJ has put this up proudly
on their website: a good communication strategy?
INTERVIEW
WITH ECB'S GONZALEZ-PARAMO
In an interview published
this week, ECB Executive Board member José Manuel
González-Páramo speaks out firmly against changing the wording
of the
Stability and Growth Pact, saying: "The Pact is a cornerstone of
the
currency union. Nobody had questioned its rules until some countries had
problems complying with them".
BANK
OF THAILAND FACING LAWSUIT -
The former president of Krung
Thai Bank (KTB), Viroj Nualkhair, plans to sue
KTB's board of directors and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) for more than
100
million baht in compensation for damage to his job and reputation, TNA
reported this week.
-
AND COMPUTER HACKING
Meanwhile, the governor , Pridiyathorn Devakula, is awaiting the results
of
a probe into computer hacking. A senior employee, who was arrested last
month for theft, allegedly told police that he had gained access to the
bank
data system.
IS
ZHOU FOLLOWING IN VOLCKER'S FOOTSTEPS?
Officials in
Beijing are stuck with a pegged currency, capital controls and
a monetary policy that is anything but autonomous, says an article by
William Pesek of Bloomberg News in the IHT (Novembeer 4). Its major banks
aren't lenders so much as financing arms of the government. And China's
economic boom is largely the product of powerful and unpredictable inflows
of foreign capital. Yet, according to the article, the Fed circa 1979
and
People's Bank of China circa 2004 have something in common: loss of control
over the money supply. Zhou “shouldn't necessarily jump on the monetarist
bandwagon”, it says, yet the nature of China's economic growth raises
questions about whether interest rate adjustments alone will counter
overheating. Just as Volcker did 25 years ago, Zhou needs “to bring
fresh
thinking and unconventional strategies to cool inflation before it
devastates China's economy.”
“As if that weren't challenging enough, Zhou also needs to establish
credibility for an institution that has little. The world is watching
Zhou
to see if China's central bank has the power - and the slightest bit of
autonomy - to get things under control. Central banking is as much about
winning the trust of markets as adjusting interest rates.”
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