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Posts Tagged ‘yuan’

Doing The Global Currency Shuffle

July 19, 2011 Comments off

alt-market

In mainstream financial circles, the concept of a global currency is often spoken of only with an atmosphere of caution. It is approached always in hypothetical terms. It is whispered of as some far off dream; a socio-economic moon landing in the far reaches of fiscal space. Perhaps in 2015, or 2020, or maybe 2050, but certainly never just over the horizon, or right around the corner posing as an innocuous trade asset created over 40 years ago and used only on rare occasions. Unfortunately, the development of a centralized global security representing the creation of a supranational economic body is much closer than many would care to admit…

The most common argument made in the mainstream against a global currency taking shape is the Read more…

Categories: currency Tags: , , , , , ,

Russia, China Will Trade In Rubles,Yuan

June 24, 2011 Comments off

rian

Russian Central Bank

Russian Central Bank

Russia and China will switch to trade in rubles and yuan to boost bilateral trade and economic cooperation, following an agreement signed between the central banks of both countries, Russian Central Bank Deputy Chairman Viktor Melnikov said on Thursday.

“This agreement allows for settlements through Russian and Chinese banks not only in the freely convertible currencies but also in the yuan and the ruble,” Melnikov said.

Russia and China have also agreed to boost bilateral trade from $60 billiion in 2010 to $100 billion by 2015 and to $200 billion by 2020, Melnikov said.

People’s Bank of China Deputy Chairman Ma Delun said the agreement would give the two nations the opportunity to increase the value of deals in their national currencies and “help bring them closer to international reserve currencies.”

The deal will also help Russia and China reduce foreign exchange risks and currency conversion costs, Ma and Melnikov said

Categories: China, Russia Tags: , , , ,

China’s yuan at record ahead of Washington talks

May 9, 2011 Comments off

marketwatch

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China’s yuan rose to a fresh record against the U.S. dollar on Monday, edging up a fraction from its close in the previous trading session ahead of senior-level talks between Chinese and U.S. officials, slated for later Monday in Washington. China’s central bank set the official central parity rate for the U.S. dollar at 6.4988 yuan, compared to Friday’s setting of 6.5003 yuan. The level represented a record high against the dollar, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. The U.S. dollar dropped below the 6.50-level for the first time on April 29, and was at 6.4955 around midday in East Asia on Monday, according to FactSet data.

Categories: China Tags: , , , ,

US, China to hold economy meeting in May

April 26, 2011 Comments off

AFP

WASHINGTON — Top officials from the United States and China will meet in Washington early next month, the Treasury Department said Monday, as tensions between the two economic superpowers simmer.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will host Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo, amid continued tensions over debt, exports and the value of China’s currency.

The Treasury Department has delayed the publication of a report that could lead to sanctions against Beijing until after the meeting, despite US lawmakers complaining that China is still manipulating its currency for trade advantage.

The semi-annual report, which was due on April 15, has become a focal point for critics who accuse Beijing of unfairly keeping the yuan weak against the dollar to boost Chinese exports.

The US government said it would wait until a meeting of the Group of 20 finance chiefs, the IMF’s annual spring Read more…

Categories: China, United States Tags: , , , , , ,

Dollar keeps sinking while gold tops $1,500

April 22, 2011 Comments off

latimes.com

Silver, Gold up 49% 6% respectively on the year while Dollar keeps tumbling

The dollar is getting trashed again, driving a key index of the U.S. currency’s value to its lowest level in more than two years.

And as the greenback slumps further, gold and silver — the hard-money alternatives to paper currencies — are hitting new highs. Gold closed above $1,500 an ounce for the first time.

The DXY index, which measures the dollar’s value against six other major currencies (including the euro, the yen and the Swiss franc), slid to 74.10 on Thursday, down 0.4% from Wednesday and the lowest since August 2008.

Dxy421 Year-to-date the DXY index (charted at left) is down 6.2%.

“It’s a ‘sell the dollar, buy everything else’ market,” said Win Thin, a currency strategist at Brown Bros. Harriman in New York.

The euro hit a new 16-month high of $1.454 on Thursday, up from $1.451 on Wednesday. The dollar also hit a record low of 6.52 Chinese yuan, down from 6.56 yuan a month ago, as the Chinese government allows its currency to steadily strengthen.

The buck’s slump this year has been fueled in large part by the widening gulf between U.S. interest rates and Read more…

Categories: GOLD, Precious Metals, Silver Tags: , , , , , ,

PBOC’s Zhou Urges Cutting China’s $3 Trillion of Foreign-Exchange Reserves

April 19, 2011 1 comment

bloomberg

PBoC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

China needs to reduce its foreign- exchange reserves as they exceed the level the nation requires, central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said.

The management and diversification of the holdings, which topped $3 trillion at the end of March, should be improved, Zhou said after a speech at Tsinghua University in Beijing late yesterday. The rapid accumulation is putting pressure on the sterilization operations of the People’s Bank of China, he said.

The nation’s foreign-exchange reserves climbed $197 billion in the first quarter, reflecting global imbalances that Group of 20 finance ministers agreed last week to address through deeper scrutiny of their economic policies. China’s surging holdings are fueling inflation that accelerated last month to the highest in 32 months, prompting the government to boost banks’ reserve requirements this week for the fourth time this year.

“Foreign-exchange reserves have exceeded the reasonable levels that we actually need,” Zhou said. “The rapid increase in reserves may have led to excessive liquidity and has exerted significant sterilization pressure. If the government doesn’t strike the right balance with its policies, the build-up could cause big risks,” he said, without elaborating.

The world’s second-biggest economy grew 9.7 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, faster than economists had forecast, and consumer prices climbed Read more…

Categories: Banks, China Tags: , , , , , , ,

BRICS demand global monetary shake-up, greater influence

April 14, 2011 Comments off

yahoo.com

(L-R) India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev, China's President Hu Jintao, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff and South African President Jacob Zuma attend a joint news conference at the BRICS Leaders Meeting in Sanya, Hainan province April 14, 2011. The development banks of the five BRICS nations agreed in principle on Thursday to establish mutual credit lines denominated in their local currencies, not in dollars. REUTERS/How Hwee Young/Pool

SANYA, China (Reuters) – The BRICS group of emerging-market powers kept up the pressure on Thursday for a revamped global monetary system that relies less on the dollar and for a louder voice in international financial institutions.

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa also called for stronger regulation of commodity derivatives to dampen excessive volatility in food and energy prices, which they said posed new risks for the recovery of the world economy.

Meeting on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, they said the recent financial crisis had exposed the inadequacies of the current monetary order, which has the dollar as its linchpin.

What was needed, they said in a statement, was “a broad-based international reserve currency system providing stability and certainty” — thinly veiled criticism of what the BRICS see as Washington’s neglect of its global monetary responsibilities.

The BRICS are worried that America’s large trade and budget deficits will eventually debase the dollar. They also begrudge the financial and political privileges that come with being the leading reserve currency.

“The world economy is undergoing profound and complex changes,” Chinese President Hu Jintao said. “The era demands that the BRICS countries strengthen dialogue and cooperation.”

In another dig at the dollar, the development banks of the five BRICS nations agreed to establish mutual credit lines denominated in their local currencies, not the U.S. currency.

The head of China Development Bank (CDB), Chen Yuan, said he was prepared to lend up to 10 billion yuan to fellow BRICS, and his Russian counterpart said he was looking to borrow the yuan equivalent of at least $500 million via CDB.

“We think this will undoubtedly broaden the opportunities for Russian companies to diversify their loans,” Vladimir Dmitriev, the chairman of VEB, Read more…

Categories: Brazil, BRIC, China, India, Russia, South Africa Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

China Inflation Is `Somewhat Out of Control’ on Weak Currency, Soros Says

April 12, 2011 Comments off

China’s decision to keep its currency weak has caused the government to lose control of inflation and risks fuelling wage-price gains, billionaire investor George Soros said.

While the policy helped insulate China from the financial crisis in 2008, the world’s second-biggest economy has missed its chance to allow the yuan to appreciate to tame inflation, Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC, said yesterday at a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.

“It would be very advantageous to allow the currency to appreciate as a way of controlling inflation,” Soros said. “The authorities missed that opportunity. You now have inflation somewhat out of control, and causing some serious danger of wage-price inflation.”

The yuan gained 4.6 percent against the U.S. dollar in the past two years, the second-smallest gain of 10 Asian currencies tracked by Bloomberg, even as economic growth rebounded and foreign-exchange reserves jumped to a record. Inflation accelerated to Read more…

Categories: China, Inflation Tags: , , , , , , , ,

12 Warning Signs of U.S. Hyperinflation

March 29, 2011 Comments off

inflation

One of the most frequently asked questions we receive at the National Inflation Association (NIA) is what warning signs will there be when hyperinflation is imminent. In our opinion, the majority of the warning signs that hyperinflation is imminent are already here today, but most Americans are failing to properly recognize them. NIA believes that there is a serious risk of hyperinflation breaking out as soon as the second half of this calendar year and that hyperinflation is almost guaranteed to occur by the end of this decade.

In our estimation, the most likely time frame for a full-fledged outbreak of hyperinflation is between the years 2013 and 2015. Americans who wait until 2013 to prepare, will most likely see the majority of their purchasing power wiped out. It is essential that all Americans begin preparing for hyperinflation immediately.

Here are NIA’s top 12 warning signs that hyperinflation is about to occur: Read more…

Categories: America, Inflation, United States Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

China May Match India as World’s Biggest Gold Consumer on ‘Amazing’ Demand

March 24, 2011 Comments off

bloomberg.com

Chinese consumption of gold may climb to rival that of India, the top user, as investors buy the metal as a store of value, said GFMS Ltd. and INTL FCStone.

Demand in China, the world’s second-biggest economy, almost tripled to 580 metric tons last year from 206 tons in 2001, data from the producer-funded World Gold Council show. Use in India may slump 5 percent to 26 percent this year from 963 tons in 2010, Morgan Stanley said in a report yesterday.

Bullion soared to a record $1,444.95 an ounce on March 7 and rallied 30 percent last year for a 10th annual gain as investors sought to preserve their wealth against inflation, Middle East unrest and currency debasement. Consumer prices in China climbed 4.9 percent in February from a year ago, exceeding the government’s 4 percent goal for the full year.

“The level of interest in gold as an asset class is just amazing,” Jeffrey Rhodes, global head of precious metals with INTL FCStone in Dubai, said in an interview. “There is potential for China to Read more…

Categories: China, GOLD, India Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,