All the bad news and rumors of recent weeks had most analysts inching up their estimates for February CPI inflation to almost 8%. Of course there were some who were a lot more pessimistic. Logan Wright of Stone & McCarthy expected the number to come in at 8.5%, and MacQuarie’s Paul Cavey told me a …
Read More…Archive for March, 2008
High PPI inflation, low trade surplus, but it doesn’t much matter
The title on the National Bureau of Statistics of China website was perhaps a little blunter than what one would expect from a government website: “Producers’ Price Index (PPI) for Manufactured Goods Kept Surging in February.” PPI was indeed up, by 6.6% from February of last year, substantially higher than January’s 6.1%. Although this …
Read More…Political advisor: Hot money rush may worsen inflation
Regular readers may think I am spending too much time looking for evidence of hot money inflows into China, but this has the potential to be a very seriously destabilizing problem and, given the opacity of Chinese accounts, it is not always easy to get conclusive evidence one way or the other. In fact some …
Read More…More, or less, RMB appreciation?
Most PBoC watchers have always believed that the PBoC has been among the most vocal supporters of a stronger currency, and has argued in the past that an appreciating RMB is the best way to fight inflation. Yesterday, however, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the PBoC, surprised a number of people at his NPC-related press conference. …
Read More…What is going on with PBoC January reserve increases?
There is a fairly surprising report on Reuters tonight. According to “unnamed sources”, central bank reserves at the end of January were $1,651.4 billion, which means that reserves were up by $61.6 billion during the month – nearly three times the average rate for the past few months. I called up some friends, including Logan …
Read More…Monetary alarmists back in control?
After the October Economic Conference it was pretty clear that the monetary alarmists, who worry that Chinese monetary policy has forced excessive investment and the threat of rising inflation, had gained the upper hand over the pro-growth members of the government, who were determined to maintain employment growth and more willing to accept the risk …
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