Ex PBOC Governor named Head of China’s National Pension Fund

February 11, 2008 Posted by China Briefing Reading Time: 2 minutes

Responsible for USD70 billion national social security
By Chris Devonshire-Ellis

February 11th – Dai Xianglong, the ex Governor of the Peoples Bank of China and the current Mayor of Tianjin has just been named as the new Head of China’s national social security fund.

Mr. Dai was born in Yizheng City, Jiangsu Province in October 1944, and graduated in accounting from the Beijing-based Central Institute of Finance and Banking in 1967. He began his career in August 1968, serving as deputy division chief of Jiangsu Provincial Branch of the People’s Bank of China, a deputy magistrate of Fengxian County in Jiangsu, and vice director of Jiangsu Provincial Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China.

In 1985, he served as deputy governor of the Agriculture Bank of China. From 1989 to July 1993, he was general manager and concurrently vice chairman of the China Communications Bank, and president of the China Pacific Insurance Co., Ltd.

In July 1993, he transferred as vice governor to the People’s Bank of China and later served as deputy head of the Leading Group in charge of aid-the-poor projects under the State Council. In June 1995, he was appointed governor of the People’s Bank of China.

In December 2002, he served as deputy mayor and acting mayor of Tianjin. In January 2003, he was elected as mayor of Tianjin. He is a member of the 16th CPC Central Committee.

The position comes as Beijing seeks to gain more central control of it’s national pensions fund in wake of various embezzlement scandals in other cities, most notably Shanghai, where the ex Party Secretary, Chen Liangyu has been incarcerated following a huge investigation into the misappropriation of the city social security fund to invest in commercial projects.