Six regions compete for yuan settlement in foreign trade
March 10, 2009
As many as six Chinese regions, including Guangdong, Shanghai, Guangxi, Yunnan, Hong Kong and Macao are competing to begin a pilot program that allows the yuan to be used as the settlement currency in some regional trade, local media reported.
The Shenzhen-based Security Times, citing Guangdong province Governor Huang Huahua, said the local government is seeking the central government’s approval to start the yuan settlement in its foreign goods trade. Huang made the statement in a press briefing during the second session of the annual parliament meeting.
In early February, Shanghai said it had submitted the application for renminbi settlement in foreign trade.
China’s State Council, or the Cabinet, announced plans in December 2008 to begin yuan settlement trials with some economies. The program would permit Yunnan and Guangxi to use the yuan in trade settlement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Pearl and Yangtze River delta regions would also be permitted to use yuan for settlement of trade with Hong Kong and Macao.
At a press conference Friday at the ongoing National People’s Congress, central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan confirmed the pilot program would start soon.
Most of the competing provinces are located in China’s southeastern seaside, where foreign trade is very active. The renminbi settlement is expected to bring more business
Source: China Daily
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Will Yuan Depreciate against USD?
December 19, 2008
As the Chinese currency yuan or renminbi appreciated all over 2 years and those buying from China directly felt the rising costs of purchases since the stronger Yuan made the Chinese exports more expensive.
Nearly, for the last 6 months, the currency rate is stabilized at 6.80’s level. However, as the global crisis hit the Chinese economy, there is now the possibility for Yuan’s depreciation. But it is actually very hard because as the rest of the world have deep problems, a China making exports cheaper could or would give way to protectionist reactions against Chinese imports, especially in USA and EU.
Here is Shanghai Daily news about the debate over the depreciation:
ECONOMISTS are divided on the yuan’s movement next year.
Liao Qun, CITIC Ka Wah Bank chief economist, said yesterday he expects the yuan to appreciate 2 percent to 4 percent next year, a “moderate appreciation.” “From a mid and long-term view, the trend of yuan appreciation is irreversible as China continues to integrate with the global economy,” Liao said.
The currency has appreciated 6 percent this year against the United States dollar in the first half with its momentum on hold in the second half after a moderate depreciation in recent weeks.
The People’s Bank of China has said that it will stabilize the local currency and doesn’t rule out depreciation of the yuan.
Liao said he expected the foreign currency to re-emerge as a hot issue when President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.
“A weaker yuan can help Chinese exporters. However, the question is that when the external demand is shrinking, a relatively cheaper price won’t make big difference,” Liao said. “Only if the yuan depreciated by 20 percent, which is unlikely, can there be a big help for exports. If not, a mild depreciation of the yuan won’t give actual significant help to exporters.”
Lu Zhengwei, Industrial Bank chief economist, had a different view and said depreciation of 10 percent next year would help exports.
“It may be the best timing for the yuan to depreciate since 2002 against the backdrop of the current financial crisis,” said Lu. “Why should China continue to keep its currency up when currencies of other emerging markets are depreciating?”
A depreciated yuan, together with tax rebates, would help exports a lot, he said. “Depreciation is part of a more flexible foreign currency control,” Lu said.
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Yuan set to climb against US dollar this week
December 15, 2008
Chinese currency yuan or renminbi was pegged to USD until 2005. Since then, the currency is allowed to appreciate unfavorably to those importing from China and to factories in China making exports because it makes the Chinese exports expensive as USD lose its previous value. So, for those importing from China is better to closely follow the currency movements as it directly affects the purchasing costs. Here is the latest situation of renminbi as of 14th Dec:
THE yuan is likely to continue its appreciation against the United States dollar this week.
The Chinese currency edged up to finish at 6.8451 against the US dollar last Friday, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System. The yuan closed at 6.8482 by the end of the previous week.
Fan Gang, a central bank monetary policy committee member, noted the modest depreciation of the yuan in the previous week was normal amid short-term volatility, according to a report by Shanghai Securities News.
Meanwhile, the US last Friday said retail sales in the nation fell 1.8 percent last month for a fifth consecutive month amid weak consumer sentiment and tight credit in a deepening recession.
Source: Shanghai Daily
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Yuan Starts Making Exports Cheaper
December 3, 2008
The Chinese currecy yuan (renminbi) was in fall for the last 3 years until the Chinese economy started to be hit by global crisis. The currency has been stable for the last 3 months, but as the global financial crisis deepens and further affects Chinese economy, the yuan also started to decline,say, making the exports cheaper. Here is the news from Xinhua :
Yuan falls on talk currency decline is to help exports
By XINHUA
CHINA’S currency, the yuan, fell by the daily limit against the United States dollar for a second day yesterday, its fourth straight daily decline.
The yuan finished at 6.8870 per US dollar on the over-the-counter market, having declined 0.5 percent against its central parity rate. The central parity rate, announced by the China Foreign Exchange Trading System, was 6.8527 yuan per US dollar yesterday, compared with 6.8505 yuan on Monday.
On Monday, the yuan also fell by the 0.5 percent daily limit on the over-the-counter market to end at 6.8848 to the US dollar. Monday’s move marked the yuan’s biggest weakening since China ended the peg to the US dollar in July 2005.
The yuan’s central parity rate is based on a weighted average of market makers’ price inquiries before the market opens on each business day. The rate is allowed to fluctuate within a band of 0.5 percent on either side of the mid-point.
Zhao Qingming, a senior analyst at China Construction Bank, said the yuan depreciation resulted directly from a stronger US dollar.
“In addition, China has announced many pro-active fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate the economy, which fuels market speculation that the yuan might depreciate against the US dollar to help increase exports,” he said.
Ou Minggang, director of the International Finance Research Center at the China Foreign Affairs University, attributed the yuan’s depreciation to recent interest-rate cuts in China.
Last week, the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, cut the benchmark one-year yuan loan rate to 5.58 percent from 6.66 percent and the one-year yuan deposit rate to 2.52 percent from 3.60 percent. The 108-basis-point cuts were the fourth since mid-September and the largest since the late 1990s.
Ou said the weaker yuan could help support China’s exports.
Monday’s unusual yuan move buoyed shares of Chinese textile firms yesterday, betting the weaker yuan could help textile exports.
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Rise of yuan – where now for China’s currency?
October 7, 2008
An article published in Xinhua by Zhu Yifan about the course and effects of being rebalanced Renminbi. The writer taking a look at Purchasing Power Parity, Exports,trade surplus and where is the end! Here you can read below:
(Xinhua) — Coming back from a short business trip to Hong Kong, Clare Hu opened her purse and found that she had unintentionally spent half of her monthly salary while browsing through shops and department stores there.
“There are a variety of goods there, and they are much cheaper,” says Hu, a media worker in Shanghai. Her colleagues bought even more. The buys ranged from 2, 000-yuan cameras to a box of milk tea.
Mainland tourist shopping sprees in Hong Kong are becoming a tradition, but such behavior has become much more reckless as yuan has risen in value, increasing its purchase power.
China’s currency, the Renminbi or yuan, has appreciated 20 percent against the U.S. dollar since it was unpegged from the dollar in 2005. The Hong Kong dollar, which is still pegged to the U.S. dollar, has weakened from 1.06 to 0.88 to the yuan.
INCREASED PURCHASING POWER
“With the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, the outbound travel market is expanding,” says Grace Pan, head of travel and leisure research at Nielsen.
Chinese travelers spend on average 2,597 to 3,506 U.S. dollars on an overseas trip, with the amount varying by region, according to the Nielsen China Outbound Travel Monitor report.
Not only are mainland residents traveling abroad to take advantage of the rising yuan, they can sense the change in the domestic market. Prices of imported vehicles, which have been high for years, have been falling slowly for the first five months this year.
According to National Development and Reform Commission monitoring data on consumer product prices in 36 large and medium-sized cities nationwide, the prices of imported vehicles dropped 1.95 percent in May from the previous month,
China imported 171,000 automobiles in the first five months, up59 percent compared with the same period last year. In 2007, the volume of automobile imports saw an annual rise of 37.9 percent. Part of the reason is that international automobile giants made stronger efforts in China this year to make up for reduced sales in the North American market. Chinese consumers, with a currency that is becoming stronger daily, are believed to be becoming more open to buying imported cars.
The market of imported snacks and other foods has been rising at an annual rate of 15 percent in the past five years, according to report on the industrial website sponsored by China National Food Industry Association (CNFIA).
EXPORTS PAINS
In contrast to consumers, exporters have been hurt by the appreciation, which has eroded their profits to crisis point.
“In only half a year, our export cost was pushed up by 10 percent and profit reduced by 40 percent,” says Shen Yaoqing, vice president of Shangtex Holding Co., a major Shanghai-based textile manufacturer that exports about 2 billion U.S. dollars worth of products annually. “Our company is on the brink of failure.”
The problem of Shangtex reflects the dire situation suffered by the export-oriented processing trade that employs up to 40 million people.
Exports have been hailed as one of the country’s three economic growth engines, together with consumption and investment. But the engine is slowing with reduced overseas orders. China’s monthly trade surplus dropped to 20.2 billion U.S. dollars in May, down 10percent from the same month last year, according to the General Administration of Customs.
CHANGE BEHIND THE SCENES
The reverberations of the rapid appreciation of the yuan are deep and complicated. The change was not as simple as a boost in buying power or a squeezed trade surplus.
Behind it lies a shift in the country’s overall economic strategy, driven by recognition that the current export structure won’t support economic development the way it used to.
“China’s currency had been kept in an undervalued state since the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, and the government in effect used it to finance the imports and exports sector at the cost of its non-trading industries,” says Professor Pan Yingli, of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University management school.
A large profit margin was then created between low production costs paid in undervalued yuan, and the high revenues reaped by selling these products to international clients.
This brought prosperity for the country, but took a heavy toll with high pollution and energy consumption. Too much labor-intensive industry with low-efficiency and little added value stretched supply by demanding evermore manufacturing materials, which pushed up upstream prices. The heavy reliance on overseas markets was detrimental to the establishment of an overall balanced industrial structure in China.
It also created a persistent gap between the well-developed coastal east, which thrived by trading with the outside, and the poor central and western regions in China.
“The structural conflict has accumulated to a stage that demands a solution,” says Pan. “Strengthening the yuan is the rational choice as it helps stabilize inflation and leads to the optimization of industrial structure.”
Studies in east China’s Jiangsu Province found the composition of exported products started to change with appreciation. High-tech goods, machinery and electronic products started to take a greater share at the expense of labor-intensive products, such as textiles, garments and toys.
In the Pearl River delta area, 2,331 shoe makers have gone out of business, and 2,428 remain. Shoe exports were down 15.5 percent to 1.35 billion pairs in the first five months compared with the same period last year, but the value gained 9.4 percent to 3.97 billion U.S. dollars.
WHERE IS THE END
This year, the appreciation has accelerated, breaking through the 7-yuan mark against the dollar in early April before it weakened slightly on a stronger dollar in May. However, it soon regained strength and broke through the 6.9-yuan mark to hit a record 6.8919 to the dollar on June 17. By then, it had appreciated almost 6 percent in 2008 alone.
As China’s currency became increasingly stronger, Liu Yuhui, researcher with Chinese Academy of Social Sciences noticed a dangerous undercurrent of money flows. Observation of statistical data showed that “hot money,” or international short-term speculative funds, is speeding up its flow into China in the first quarter, which was closely related in an anticipation of faster appreciation of the yuan.
No official figures was released concerning the “hot money”, but analysts smelt a rat from the strange phenomenon that combines a ballooning forex reserves and declining current-account surplus and reduced expenditure of foreign investment in China.
During the first five months of 2008, forex reserves increased by 18.7 percent year-on-year, or 268.7 billion U.S. dollars, SAFE figures showed. Jiang Zheng, a macro-economist at a Beijing-based securities firm, has discovered that there was an unexplained 147.9 billion U.S. dollars in the forex reserve increase figure after deducting the trade surplus and the FDI from it.
The concentration of international speculative fund in China’s domestic market would pose major threats to a stable exchange rate of yuan, and also rob a country of effective control of its macroeconomy, says Liu.
Given the complexity of the situation, opinion is divided over whether the appreciation will continue, or whether there will be a one-off appreciation to end the uncertainty. Guesses are made at the so-called ceiling of the yuan.
Central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan says China would gradually expand the elasticity of the exchange rate, sending out the signal that Beijing would let the yuan fluctuate rather than rise unilaterally.
The fast appreciation of the yuan in the first half might not continue, and the concern over possible fallback of foreign trade could weigh against continuous further appreciation, says Peng Xingyun, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
“There are many factors in the market that affect supply and demand, which, if changed, would sway the exchange rates,” says Peng.
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