* Appointment not widely reported in China
* No reason given for appointment (Adds background, quotes)
BEIJING, Sept 1 (Reuters) - China has appointed a Harvard- and Yale-educated official, Wang Qingyun, to head the State Reserves Bureau (SRB), the agency that triggered this year's metals price rally.
China's top planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which oversees the SRB, published the appointment on Monday on its website http://cbj.ndrc.gov.cn/jld/jjz/t20050602_72832.htm.
Wang's predecessor, Su Bo, remains a member of the Party Committee of the NDRC and head of the NDRC's anti-corruption group. No reason was given for the appointment of Wang, who at 54 years old is five months older than Su.
Su had headed the SRB since January 2005.
The change at the top of China's central commodities warehouse was not widely reported. Chinese websites noted the change in leadership without comment on Monday, but newspapers did not mention it or offer any explanation.
As well as studying in the United States, Wang did training stints organised by the United Nations, the World Bank and Canada, Germany and Italy. He studied engineering and management and worked mainly in government bodies dealing with logistics and transport.
As head of the NDRC's transport department, Wang was vocal in supporting market-based solutions to problems and pushed for modernising China's road and rail systems, with an eye on sustainability and the sensible use of resources.
He also said China's railway sector should use more private capital and said he favoured a separation between government and enterprise, once the country's infrastructure had developed enough.
Commenting on China's policy of opening up and reform in a newspaper interview in March, he said: "We've taken quite a few detours. We nationalised some things that should stay in private hands and we privatised some things that should be part of the public sector."
In the same interview, he criticised the U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to stimulate the domestic economy by improving infrastructure and repairing roads.
"That's fostering domestic demand just for the sake of it, whereas China is totally different, today we are fostering demand to give an impetus for long-term development."
Under Wang's predecessor, Su, the SRB bought a range of metals earlier this year, including copper, aluminium and zinc to support Chinese producers, a market intervention that boosted global prices and sent a wave of shipments towards China.
Su had taken over soon after the SRB suffered an estimated loss of of 920 million yuan ($131 million), when its only authorised London Metals Exchange trader at that time built a huge short position on LME copper futures in early 2004.
The trader, named Liu Qibing, disappeared in October 2005 when futures surged from $3,000 to $4,000 per tonne. He was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in March 2008. (Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Reporting by Polly Yam and Tom Miles; Editing by Ben Tan and Rupert Winchester)