Xiao Gang, China’s Top Securities Regulator, Replaced Over Market Tumult.
HONG KONG — China’s top securities regulator, Xiao Gang, has been replaced, the official Xinhua News Agency announced on Saturday, after facing stinging criticism for amplifying the country’s stock market turbulence.
The move reflects the increasing pressure on the Chinese leadership to bolster confidence at home, as questions mount about Beijing’s ability to manage the economy, the currency and the markets.
Just days ago, Prime Minister Li Keqiang castigated the country’s financial regulators for their handling of a steep plunge in stocks since last June and an erosion in the value of China’s currency.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission, led by Mr. Xiao, 57, has taken a big dose of blame for the problems.
He attracted significant criticism for allowing a speculative bubble to form, in which share prices more than doubled in a year. When it burst last summer, those shares gave up all of their gains, hurting millions of families who had borrowed heavily to buy stocks.
As stocks sank, the regulator also intensified the market mayhem. Two measures, intended to stabilized stocks, have been widely blamed for producing a weeklong rout in China’s stock markets that unsettled investors around the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/business/dealbook/china-securities-regulatory-commission-xiao-gang-resigns.html?
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