Monthly Archive for October 2010

The seemingly imminent and inexorable rise of the renminbi as a major, even dominant, reserve and trading currency, has been almost as widely heralded as the equivalent rise of the Japanese yen just twenty years ago. Even my normally skeptical friend Nouriel Roubini seems to think so.  Here is an article from last year’s Telegraph: [...]

PBoC rate hike announced

The PBoC has just announced that it is hiking the one-year lending and deposit rates by 25 basis points. Here is what Bloomberg says: China raised its benchmark lending and deposit rates for the first time since 2007 after inflation accelerated to the fastest pace in 22 months. The one-year deposit rate will increase to [...]

Earlier this week I had a debate on TV with a local economist on the subject of trade relations.  We had the same debate about six and twelve months ago and in each case while I argued that the trade problems were almost intractable and trade relations would inexorably deteriorate, he both times acknowledged that [...]

Because of US and European pressure Beijing may allow much faster appreciation of the renminbi than it likes over the next year, but this will almost certainly be accompanied with policies that reduce the adverse employment impact.  In my opinion the most likely such policy involves credit.  If Beijing expands cheap credit, however, it may [...]