By Cynthia Kim and Joori Roh

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s central bank on Wednesday nominated an economist with expertise in macro-economic policies to join the bank’s seven-member board, as it considers further policy tightening to shift away from pandemic-era monetary settings.

Park Ki-young is 50 and replaces Koh Siung-beom. He left the board to become the head of the Financial Services Commission.

Park will continue until April 20. Koh’s term is due to expire in 2023.

As the price pressures increase and household debt becomes unsustainable, policymakers are concerned that Koh’s term will soon end.

Many market participants had expected Governor Lee Juyel would appoint someone with hawkish feet, because Koh was one who advocated for the BOK to raise rates in order to reduce financial imbalances.

Park briefly served as an official at the BOK in 1999, before going on to pursue further education at The University of Maryland.

In August, Bank of Korea raised its policy interest rate by 25 basis point to 0.75%. This is the first significant Asian central bank that has stopped using monetary stimuli from the Pandemic Era.