A new record as Chinese foreign exchange reserves hit $2,450bn – but the rate of increase is slowing, relative to last year.
China already has by far the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves (see comparison). A slowdown has happened before, and did not prevent subsequent growth: during late 2008 and early 2009 reserves were stagnant, actually decreasing in some months. Read more
When trade and budget deficits collide
It’s not often that the US’s two gaping deficits make the news the same day, so today we’re able to have our fill of gap developments (though, we’re unlikely to be much closer to filling the gaps themselves.)
This morning, in a letter to Tim Geithner, treasury secretary, and Gary Lock, commerce secretary, 130 members of Congress asked for action on “currency manipulation” in China. Read more
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Chris Giles has been the economics editor of the Financial Times since 2004. Based in London, he writes about international economic trends and the British economy. Before reporting economics for the Financial Times, he wrote editorials for the paper, reported for the BBC, worked as a regulator of the broadcasting industry and undertook research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies. RSS
Michael Steen, Frankfurt bureau chief, covers the ECB and the eurozone's economies. He joined the Financial Times in 2007 as Amsterdam correspondent and later worked as a front page news editor in London. Before joining the FT, he spent nine years as a correspondent at Reuters, mostly in foreign postings that included a previous stint in Frankfurt, as well as Moscow, Kiev and central Asia. He read German and Russian at Cambridge.RSS
Robin Harding is the FT's US economics editor, based in Washington. Prior to this, he was based in Tokyo, covering the Bank of Japan and Japan's technology sector, and in London as an economics leader writer. Robin studied economics at Cambridge and has a masters in economics from Hitotsubashi University, where he was a Monbusho scholar. Before joining the FT, Robin worked in asset management and banking. RSS
Ralph Atkins, capital markets editor, has been writing for the Financial Times for more than 20 years following an economics degree from Cambridge. From 2004 to 2012, Ralph was Frankfurt bureau chief, watching the European Central Bank and eurozone economies. He has also worked in Bonn, Berlin, Jerusalem and Brussels. RSS
Claire Jones is Money Supply economics team writer, based in London. Before joining the Financial Times, she was the editor of the Central Banking journal and CentralBanking.com. Claire studied philosophy and economics at the London School of Economics. RSS
