On April 20, the National Assembly’s Strategy and Finance Committee adopted its confirmation hearing report for Shin Hyun-song, the nominee for governor of the Bank of Korea.The committee approved the report at a plenary meeting held at 2 p.m. that day.
The decision clears the way for a seamless transition to the new Bank of Korea governor.
Adopted after two failed attempts
The committee conducted Shin’s confirmation hearing on April 15. However, questions about the nationality of his children prevented the panel from adopting the report that day, and a second attempt on April 17 also failed.
It is the first time since the procedure was introduced in 2014 that a confirmation hearing report was not adopted on the day of the hearing.
Im Eui-ja, the committee chair and a member of the People Power Party, said many members agreed that a vacancy in the governor’s office could not be tolerated given the precarious domestic and international economic situation. She added that the committee would record the controversy over his children in its report.
Under Korean law, the president formally appoints the Bank of Korea governor following the National Assembly confirmation hearing.
Signals a balanced monetary policy
Shin Hyun-song is regarded as a leading expert in international finance.
Born in 1959, he studied political economy and philosophy at the University of Oxford and earned his master’s and Ph.D. in economics there. He has held faculty positions at Oxford, the London School of Economics, and Princeton University’s economics department. He has also served as an IMF resident scholar and as an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and he previously served as the Blue House’s international economic adviser. Since 2014, he has held senior roles at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), first as economic adviser and head of research and later as director of the monetary and economic department.
In formal remarks after his nomination on March 22, Shin said he would “consider how to run a balanced monetary policy that takes into account inflation, growth, and financial stability.”
Meanwhile, outgoing governor Lee Chang-yong’s term concluded the same day and a farewell ceremony was held. Shin is scheduled to be sworn in as governor on April 21.
