The National Assembly's Finance and Economy Planning Committee held a plenary session on the 20th and voted to adopt the confirmation hearing report on Hyun Song Shin, the nominee for Governor of the Bank of Korea (BOK).
Before the confirmation hearing began, Shin had been widely expected to clear the process without difficulty. He most recently served as Economic Adviser and Head of the Monetary and Economic Department at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), often called "the central bank of central banks," and previously held professorships at Oxford University in the United Kingdom and Princeton University in the United States.
However, the adoption of Shin's confirmation report had been derailed twice before. It was revealed that Shin's eldest daughter, identified only as A, who holds British citizenship, had illegally obtained a reissued Korean passport and presented it during immigration screening. In addition, Shin used A's former resident registration number to disguise her as a Korean national and registered her residence at his apartment in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
Still, the Finance and Economy Committee agreed not to further delay the adoption of the confirmation hearing report in order to minimize a gap in monetary policy. "The criticisms against him are worth heeding for the sake of vetting the moral integrity of a central bank governor," Committee Chair Lim Yi-ja said. "But given the gravity of the economic situation, there must not be a vacancy in the position of Bank of Korea Governor."
