HONG KONG — Deutsche Bank’s chief China economist is taking up a new role at China’s central bank.
Jun Ma, a 13-year veteran of the German bank who is also its head of China and Hong Kong strategy, is leaving to become the chief economist in the research bureau at the People’s Bank of China, according to an internal Deutsche Bank memo seen by DealBook.
Mr. Ma “has made a hugely significant contribution to the success of Deutsche Bank’s franchise in Asia and worldwide through his writing, his assiduous client service and his influence as a senior manager in research,” the memo said. “We believe he will serve China exceptionally well in his new role and we wish him every success.”
Mr. Ma is known as one of the most bullish of the economists who follow China. As recently as January, he was predicting 8.6 percent growth for China’s economy this year. Deutsche Bank’s recently reduced target of 7.8 percent growth in gross domestic product for 2014 is tied for the highest among the 55 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. It compares with a survey average of 7.4 percent growth and the Chinese government’s official target of 7.5 percent.
Mr. Ma did not immediately reply on Wednesday to emails seeking comment on his move.
It is uncommon but not unheard of for people to move from jobs with Wall Street companies to roles in Chinese government institutions.
In January, the American-trained fund manager Zhu Changhong left his role as the chief investment officer at the State Administration of Foreign Exchange in Beijing, the agency in charge of investing the nation’s $3.8 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. Mr. Zhu had been at SAFE, as the agency is known, for four years, after having worked as a fund manager at Pacific Investment Management Company, or Pimco, a huge bond trading and asset-management company based in California.
Among the various arms and agencies of the Chinese government, the central bank is viewed as among the most progressive in leading the current push for overhauls to the financial system. The governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, said last month that China would deregulate interest rates on bank deposits in one to two years.
Other plans include loosening of the government’s control on the currency and a pilot program to allow an initial group of five new banks to be established by private-sector companies. The new banks would be the first legal domestic banks to be free of direct or indirect government ownership.
Before joining Deutsche Bank in 2000, Mr. Ma worked as an economist at the International Monetary Authority and at the World Bank for eight years. Before that he spent two years at an economic research institution run by the State Council, or China’s cabinet. He is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington and Shanghai’s Fudan University.