China's central bank chief calls for RMB freedom

China must press on with a “trinity” of reforms to fully realize an open economy, Zhou Xiaochuan, the country’s central bank chief for the last decade-and-a-half, told influential financial magazine Caijing in what could be one of his last major interviews in the top job. Zhou, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said China must embrace free trade and investment, let the market decide the yuan’s value, and scrap capital account controls. He said the three elements were interlinked and could not be separated. “It’s very clear that they are conditional on each other and none of the three can be spared,” he was quoted as saying in an interview published on Monday night, the South China Morning Post reports. Zhou’s advocacy of economic liberalization comes amid concerns at home about the risks of a freer exchange rate and flow of capital in the aftermath of a stock market rout and rapid capital outflows two years ago.