China’s outgoing central bank governor has called for an urgent return to his stalled capital account reforms, warning his country’s leaders that the opportunity to further open the economy “must be seized”.

“No country can achieve an open economy with strict foreign exchange controls,” Zhou Xiaochuan said in an interview with Caijing, one of China’s leading financial magazines. “Time windows are very important for reforms and must be seized. If missed, the cost of reform will be higher in future.”

Mr Zhou, who has run the People’s Bank of China since 2002, was speaking ahead of a Chinese Communist party congress next week that will mark the start of President Xi Jinping’s second five-year term. The 69-year-old PBoC governor, one of China’s most respected reform advocates, is due to retire by January.