Ousted Malaysia central bank chief returned to the top post
SHAMSIAH Mohd Yunus, who led the investigation into the trail of money that flowed out of 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), has been appointed as the governor of Malaysia’s central bank, according to a report.
She left Bank Negara Malaysia in November 2016 amid a clampdown by the previous government on people who probed into the 1MDB.
Nor Shamsiah worked with the central bank for 30 years before she left on November 15, 2016.
She takes over from Muhammad Ibrahim, who resigned on June 15, a Bloomberg report said.
Nomura Global Markets Research said Shamsiah’s appointment implies continuity in the direction and conduct of monetary policy.
Like Muhammad, she had served as deputy governor under Zeti Akhtar Aziz and she was a member of the monetary policy committee, it said. “We maintain our forecast of the policy rate being left unchanged through the rest of this year, as we forecast GDP growth slowing to 5.1 per cent in 2018 from 5.9 per cent in 2017, below Bank Negara's 5.5-6 per cent forecast.
CPI inflation will also likely fall sharply to 1.3 per cent in 2018 from 3.7 per cent in 2019, below Bank Negara's 2-3 per cent forecast,” Nomura said. Muhammad had tendered his resignation after questions were raised on the central bank’s purchase of a land from the federal government for 2 billion ringgit.
The transaction was completed in January this year and the proceeds were used to pay 1MDB’s debts.
After leaving Bank Negara, Shamsiah joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April last year where she was based in Washington DC. She was the assistant director of Monetary and Capital Markets Department there.
There was no official statement by the IMF stating that Shamsiah has resigned but sources in the banking industry indicated that she has left the international monetary body.