KUALA LUMPUR: Prof Yeah Kim Leng and Datuk Gan Wee Beng have been appointed the two external members in Bank Negara's monetary policy committee (MPC), effective April 1.

The MPC is responsible for formulating monetary policy and policies for the conduct of monetary policy operations, the central bank said in a statement on Monday. 

"Monetary policy is autonomously formulated and implemented by Bank Negara Malaysia, as mandated in the Central Bank of Malaysia Act 2009," it added.

This will be Yeah's third term in the MPC, having been first appointed an external member on April 1, 2015, and subsequently reappointed for another two-year term on April 1, 2017. 

He will serve for another year, while new appointee Gan will serve a two-year term.

Yeah is a professor of economics in Sunway University Business School, Sunway University.

He is also the director of the economic studies programme at the Jeffrey Cheah Institute of Southeast Asia, a senior fellow at the Jeffrey Sachs Center of Sustainable Development at Sunway University and a deputy president of the Malaysian Economic Association.

Yeah previously served as the group chief economist at RAM Holdings Bhd for two decades and was also formerly a senior analyst at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia.