Liu Mingkang (Chinese: 刘明康) (born August 28, 1946 in Fuzhou, Fujian) graduated from the University of London in 1987. In 1988 he received an MBA from the Cass Business School. He served as chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission from its creation in 2003 until he reached the retirement age of 65. During his tenure he was responsible for putting in place an effective regulatory structure which helped the Chinese banking system to weather the global financial crisis and to emerge relatively healthy and well capitalized.
Liu told the Boao Forum for Asia in 2012 that liberalization of financial markets is "part of a package" in the latest Five-Year Plan for promoting domestic-driven growth and rebalancing exports and imports. The liberalization "is not a piecemeal approach, but part of a series of building blocks, he said", according to one report.