Xiao Gang is new CSRC boss

He's to restore investor confidence in the listless Shanghai stock exchange.

Xiao, the former chairman of Bank of China Ltd., has been introduced to the staff of the China Securities Regulatory Commission that he will head. His appointment comes as China’s new government under Premier Li Keqiang has pledged to open China to more market forces.

His immediate priority will be reinvigorating the Shanghai bourse that was Asia’s worst-performing major stock market in the last three years. China’s equities benchmark index fell to near a four-year low in December 2012.

Xiao, 54, said he resigned from his post at the BOC because of “the needs of national financial work.” He predecessor at CSRC, Guo Shuqing, withheld approval of some 800 initial public offerings last year.

Xiao was named BOC chairman in March 2003. Under his watch, BOC’s net income grew for a seventh straight year to a record US$21.3 billion in 2012.