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China central

bank replaces

top officials

BEIJING: China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, went through a major management shakeup this month in which more than 50 senior officials were replaced, a Hong Kong newspaper said on Tuesday.

Those replaced included Fan Pusheng, director of the non-bank financial institutions administrative department, and two vice-directors of his department, the Sing Tao Daily said.

"Our director now is Xie Ping, who replaced Fan Pusheng," a department official said in Beijing. He give no other details.

Other central bank officials declined to comment.

Central bank governor Dai Xianglong was in charge of the changes which were made on April 8 and last week.

The moves are aimed at purging officials close to the former party secretary and vice-governor of the bank, Zhou Zhengqing, Sing Tao Daily quoted what it called an informed source as saying.

"After Dai took over the governorship last June, he found it difficult to supervise senior officials at departmental levels who were mostly Zhou's troops," the source said.

Zhou was transferred to the office of the state council, or cabinet, in the middle of last year, a bank spokesman said.

The shakeup in the central bank resulted from Dai's current move to set up his own network of personnel, the newspaper quoted another source as saying.

The bank was still unable to find a suitable person for the fourth vice-governor, a post which had been vacant for some time, the newspaper said.-Reuter