Fixed on the job
Joseph Yam won praise as key defender of the currency peg which he helped create, but there have been a few brickbats among the bouquets
Joseph Yam Chi-kwong is best known for playing a key role in the founding of the Hong Kong dollar's peg to the US dollar and later the main defender of the linked exchange rate system.
But Yam's high salary (he went on to become the world's highest-paid central banker), and a perceived lack of courage to review the system, also led to criticism of his 16-year tenure as chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
Seated beside the then financial secretary, John Bremridge, on October 17, 1983, Yam announced that the Hong Kong dollar would be pegged at a rate of HK$7.80 to US$1. He was the principal assistant secretary for monetary affairs at the time.
The link was introduced in the wake of a sharp fall in the currency's exchange rate to HK$9.50 to the US dollar in early October 1983 from its trading range of about HK$6.
The plunge was triggered by a crisis of confidence among investors as the British and Chinese governments began to discuss the 1997 handover of Hong Kong.
To maintain its function as an exchange rate "anchor" for the currency, Yam went on to develop various means to ensure the peg's stability. And apart from piloting all of these innovations in the market, he was responsible, as the head of the HKMA, for developing strategies to invest the Exchange Fund, a fund set up to come to the defence of the currency peg.