yuan

Official says yuan may weaken; discusses rates

July 21, 2010 10:07 am by Emma Saunders

“If [the central bank] had raised the value of renminbi in March and raised interest rates in April, financial markets would have been more stable.” This from Japanese media Asahi Shimbun, interviewing Zhou Qiren, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, an advisory body to the People’s Bank of China.

The short interview transcript is well worth a read. Mr Qiren also points out one obvious consequence of a more flexible, or floating, currency: its value may fall as well as rise. If exports were to start suffering, the yuan would weaken to help the economy, Mr Qiren said. So far, the value of the yuan has strengthened almost imperceptibly: the blue lines on the chart are the tolerance levels for the original value of the yuan on 19 June. (h/t Market Watch) Read more

Tags: Asia, china, currency, interest rates, People's Bank of China, renminbi, RMB, yuan
Posted in People's Bank of China | Permalink

Parsing the PBoC

July 11, 2010 10:11 am by Emma Saunders

Is the People’s Bank of China planning to further liberate the yuan? The central bank has cut the commitment to “keep the yuan’s exchange rate basically stable” from its latest currency communique. The rest of the message repeated the existing policy, i.e. to improve the currency’s exchange rate mechanism, and adjust its value with reference to a basket of foreign currencies.

Although the currency’s peg was loosened on June 19, the daily midpoint set by Safe has barely strayed out of the tolerance levels of the original peg; the currency need only have been 0.3 per cent weaker to meet the original, pegged criteria. Against the US claims of the yuan’s ‘true value’, the currency’s ‘strengthening’ is barely discernible. Read more

Tags: Asia, china, currency, pboc, People's Bank of China, renminbi, RMB, safe, yuan
Posted in People's Bank of China | Permalink

That yuan unpegging in full, part II

July 1, 2010 4:21 pm by Emma Saunders

Who needs context? “Yuan ends near post-revaluation high,” runs one of many excitable headlines.

Since the great unpegging, the yuan hit a ‘peak’ of 6.7801 on Wednesday. That’s a peak-to-trough movement of 0.69 per cent in the past nine days. For comparison, the dollar-sterling exchange rate peak-to-trough movement has been four times that, at 2.9 per cent. Read more

Tags: Asia, china, currency, renminbi, RMB, safe, yuan
Posted in People's Bank of China | Permalink

That flexible yuan story in full

June 25, 2010 1:31 pm by Emma Saunders

Today, for the first time, the midpoint set by Safe exceeded the 0.5 per cent tolerance bands set around the original exchange rate of 6.8275 – by half a basis point.

Not as historic as many expected at the start of the week. But then ‘flexibility’ does not mean ‘strength’: a flexible exchange rate can go up or down. Geoff Dyer, the FT’s China bureau chief, points out that domestic and international takes on the new policy differ greatly – principally because their desires differ greatly. Internationally, a stronger yuan is wanted. Domestically, the “export lobby is welcoming [flexibility] as a way of protecting itself from a weaker euro.”

China’s new policy has not completely ruled out the prospects of a political showdown. The obvious flashpoint is if the euro does weaken substantially again.

Tags: Asia, china, currency, forex, renminbi, RMB, yuan
Posted in People's Bank of China | Permalink

From Beyond Brics June 21, 2010

Will China now suffer a tidal wave of capital inflows?

One of the big risks for the Chinese authorities in beginning to gently appreciate the currency is that they set up a one-way bet for investors who believe that the renminbi can only get stronger from now on. Large inflows of hot money could make it difficult to conduct monetary policy, officials fear, and might potentially aggravate inflation.

That explains why there has been much more talk since Saturday about volatility in renminbi trading and using a currency basket as a reference. When China abandoned its currency peg in 2005, it said the renminbi would trade against a currency basket of its main trading partners, but in reality it trailed the US dollar and was much less volatile than the 0.5 per cent daily trading bands allowed.

“In one area, the emphasis will be different this time,” says Li Daokui, a central bank advisor who believes the authorities will pay more attention now to the basket in which the euro plays a large role. Economists who have been briefed by the central bank say that there will also be more daily volatility, in order to keep speculators on their toes.

This means that in principle, says Mr Li, that if the euro gets much weaker, the renminbi could fall against the dollar. Richard Yetsenga at HSBC says something similar: Read more

Tags: Africa, Asia, china, currency, renminbi, RMB, yuan
Posted in People's Bank of China | Permalink

PBoC adviser suggests renminbi appreciation

May 11, 2010 11:05 am by Emma Saunders

China’s central bank has spoken of measuring the yuan “with reference to a currency basket”. One of the bank’s academic advisers, Xia Bin, said the change in language suggests a change to the dollar peg, reports Business Week. An economist at Morgan Stanley interpreted the shift in the wording of the report as significant, and yuan forward prices have been rising for the past two days on speculation of a rise in the currency. Read more

Tags: Asia, china, currency, pboc, renminbi, RMB, yuan
Posted in People's Bank of China | Permalink

Can’t keep both prices and currencies stable

April 27, 2010 10:48 am by Emma Saunders

Reining in property speculation is not enough to combat inflation. An advisor to the Chinese central bank has said there is a fundamental problem with the PBoC mandate.

Zhou Qiren said there was “conflict” between the bank’s forex intervention and its job to manage liquidity and control inflation, reports Bloomberg. Speaking of the record levels of lending in 2009, he said: “Unless there are very forceful measures, that large amount of money will flow through the market. Even if you put lid on in one place, it will emerge somewhere else.” Read more

Tags: Asia, china, currency, inflation, renminbi, RMB, yuan
Posted in People's Bank of China | Permalink

Imbalanced assumptions: the yuan

April 26, 2010 3:51 pm by Emma Saunders

Growing evidence suggests a stronger yuan would not help the US economy nearly as much as thought, if at all. Even increased Chinese consumption is shown not to help much. So why do these assumptions continue to underpin politicians’ rhetoric?

First, the evidence:

Yuan revaluation could cut global growth by 1.5 per cent (April 26)
Chinese saving less and spending more would have very little impact on US jobs (April 25)
A 15 per cent appreciation of the RMB would reduce the American trade deficit by 5 per cent by the end of next year, but would be short-lived and would not flow through to GDP (April 16);
“Chinese revaluation is in the interests of China, not the US” (April 16)
“People seem to ascribe a ridiculously outsized role to China’s currency policy in producing China’s trade surplus and America’s trade deficit. The level of rhetoric is simply not consistent with the impact of the peg.” (March 15)

Even large changes in Chinese currency or consumption have little effect on the other side of the Pacific: US-China trade is simply too small to transmit much of the effect, so the arguments run.

So, second, why the continued assumption Read more

Tags: Asia, china, currency, Global, renminbi, revaluation, RMB, US, yuan
Posted in Uncategorized | Permalink

Don’t mention the yuan

April 24, 2010 6:39 pm by Alan Beattie

We generally call it the renminbi round here, but yuan gives a better headline. Just come out of a briefing from the UK’s Alistair Darling, taking a break from the general election campaign (for those taking notes, he’s got a majority of 7,242, not the safest seat in the world but not a marginal).

Darling had just stepped out of the IMF ministerial committee meeting in which, he informed us when I asked him, the words “yuan” and “renminbi” were never uttered. Apparently they discussed global economic imbalancing in somewhat broader terms. And the 800-pound panda in the corner of the room went ignored. Read more

Tags: Asia, china, currency, renminbi, UK, yuan
Posted in International Monetary Fund, World Bank | Permalink

China may cut foreign debt quotas to end yuan speculation

April 23, 2010 6:38 pm by Emma Saunders

From Reuters:-

China’s foreign exchange regulator is considering cutting short-term foreign debt quotas for some commercial banks, three sources familiar with the situation said on Friday, as it seeks to curb speculation over yuan appreciation. Read more