Central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) has received an “A” rating from Global Finance magazine for helping keep the nation’s inflation, currency and GDP growth relatively stable.
The rating marked an upgrade from “A-” last year and Yang on Tuesday attributed the improvement to joint efforts on the part of the central bank, the government and the general public.
The monthly magazine grades central bankers from “A” to “F” based on their performance on inflation control, economic growth, currency stability and interest rate management.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
It is the third “A” ranking awarded to Yang after he became the top monetary policymaker in February 2018 following the retirement of Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南), who won the recognition 14 times.
Taiwan’s inflation is relatively benign at above 3 percent this year, compared with 40-year highs of nearly double percentage points in the US and the EU, after the central bank raised interest rates by 0.25 percentage points in March and by another 0.125 percentage points in June.
Yang has said there are other policy tools to tackle inflation, such as the government introducing tariff breaks on energy and raw material imports.
A widening interest spread between Taiwan and other major countries contributed to capital outflows and weighed on the local bourse, with the New Taiwan dollar trading above NT$30 versus the US dollar.
Taiwan’s strong exports have lent support to its current account surplus and the value of the NT dollar, Global Finance said.
Yang won the “A” accolade alongside his peers in Brazil, China, India, Israel, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, Sweden and Vietnam.
Iceland’s Asgeir Jonsson alone won the rare “A+” honor, while the ratings for US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde slid from “A-” and “A” respectively, the magazine said.
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