Xi Jinping has kept the country’s central bank governor Yi Gang in his post and retained his finance and commerce ministers, as the Chinese president defied expectations of a large-scale overhaul of his cabinet at this year’s annual parliamentary meeting.The reappointments, which analysts said would reassure markets nervous about plans by Beijing to reform the financial sector, were among a swath of senior posts announced at the rubber-stamp National People’s Congress on Sunday.

Aside from the central bank governor, among the most important was the nomination of a senior Xi associate He Lifeng, the former head of the planning agency, as vice-premier.

He Lifeng is expected to take over the stewardship of China’s economic team from Liu He, the Harvard-trained politician who helped steer the world’s second-largest economy through the turmoil of the past five years, including the Covid-19 pandemic.