This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 30, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Dr Gan Wee Beng has joined Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), while Prof Dr Yeah Kim Leng has been reappointed to the committee for another year.

Both appointments are as external members of the committee and took effect on April 1, Bank Negara said in a statement yesterday. Gan’s appointment is for a two-year term.

The MPC is responsible for formulating monetary policy and policies for the conduct of monetary policy operations. Monetary policy is autonomously formulated and implemented by BNM, as mandated in the Central Bank of Malaysia Act 2009, said the central bank.

Yeah is a professor of economics at the Sunway University Business School, Sunway University after serving as the dean of the School of Business at the Malaysia University of Science and Technology.

He was previously group chief economist at RAM Holdings Bhd. Prior to that, he was a senior analyst at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia.

He holds a PhD in Agriculture and Resource Economics and an MBA from the University of Hawaii, the US.

Gan, formerly a board member at Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (KWAP), is currently a board member of Perbadanan Insurans Deposit Malaysia (PIDM). He has also held several positions in CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, including as adviser for investment banking, and executive director at CIMB Bank Bhd, CIMB Investment Bank Bhd and CIMB Securities Sdn Bhd.

Prior to that, he served as a senior adviser in the Economics Department of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and as consultant to the World Bank, the International Labour Organisation and BNM.

Gan holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, the US and an MSc in Economics from the University of Malaya.

With the appointment of Yeap and Gan, the MPC now comprises seven members. The other five members are BNM governor Datuk Nor Shamsiah Yunus, deputy governors Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour and Jessica Chew Cheng Lian, and assistant governors Norzila Abdul Aziz and Marzunisham Omar.