At a Cabinet meeting held Thursday, Premier Lai Ching-te expressed his highest regard and appreciation to outgoing Governor Perng Fai-nan for 43 years of standout service at the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan), including 20 years at the helm. During his term, Governor Perng adopted flexible monetary and forex policies and pushed forward-thinking financial system reforms, successfully fulfilling the bank's mandates set out by law, the premier said.
Taiwan has weathered a myriad of challenges over the past two decades, including the Asian financial crisis, the massive 1999 earthquake, the burst of the dot-com bubble, the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic, the U.S. subprime mortgage meltdown and the global financial crisis. But under Governor Perng's leadership, the central bank has always responded swiftly, the premier pointed out. During two recent financial crises, the bank lowered interest rates several times to inject liquidity into financial markets and adopted effective measures that soothed the foreign exchange market. These actions softened the blow for Taiwan and accelerated its economic recovery.
Governor Perng's excellent policies and effective management of the central bank's monetary, credit, and forex policies have earned acclaim worldwide from renowned experts, institutions and credit rating agencies: the German think tank Bertelsmann Stiftung said in its 2016 report that Taiwan's central bank enjoys one of the best reputations in Asia. The governor himself has been the recipient of many accolades, named among the world's top-tier central bankers for 14 years by the New York-based Global Finance magazine. This January, he received a lifetime achievement award from the international financial publisher Central Banking Publications for exceptional leadership at Taiwan's central bank. The governor will retire from his post Sunday.