Singapore extended the term of its central bank chief Ravi Menon by up to two years.
The re-appointment of Menon, 59, is valid until May 31, 2025 or his retirement from the public service, whichever is earlier, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in a statement Friday. The MAS doesn’t typically flag the possibility of an earlier departure in such announcements, leaving the door open for the career central banker to exit before the end of his renewed term.
Menon, who was appointed managing director in 2011, is MAS’s longest-serving chief and has steered the monetary authority through the pandemic years. He started at the MAS in 1987. Among the city-state’s officials with the deepest global reputation, he has been at the forefront of world central bank efforts to make sense of digital currencies.
Singapore’s minimum retirement age is 63, meaning any retirement within Menon’s new term would be voluntary. The city-state is due to hold a general election by November 2025, though polls could be held earlier.
While Menon told Bloomberg News in 2021 he has “absolutely no intention to enter politics,” his pedigree would likely make him an attractive candidate. His predecessors Heng Swee Keat, Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Richard Hu served as finance ministers after leaving the central bank.
Menon is poised to leave the central bank this year and Chia Der Jiun, one of his former deputies, is tipped to be his successor, Bloomberg News reported last month. That timing is still a possibility, though it wasn’t immediately clear if it has changed.
Singapore’s profile as an open, heavily trade-reliant city-state has meant Menon often puts policy decisions into the context of global economic developments while also closely monitoring unique domestic inflation effects. The MAS was among the first in the region and around the world to take a tightening stance in this cycle to protect the economy against a predicted tide of imported inflationary pressures, with such a move in October 2021.
Menon embraced financial technology as a key feature of Singapore’s draw as a leading global financial hub, having helped host seven FinTech Festivals — the last of which drew over 62,000 participants from 134 countries to the city-state.
And he’s led a charge across Southeast Asia to set up digital payments systems that transact in local currencies and use QR codes for day-to-day ease.
The MAS also announced that Goh Chok Tong, an emeritus senior minister, will step down from his position as senior adviser to the central bank from May 21. Prior to this, he served as chairman of the MAS board.
--With assistance from Natalie Choy and Karthikeyan Sundaram.
(Adds when Singapore is due to hold elections in fourth paragraph.)
