China is at a “rare strategic moment” to accelerate the opening of its capital account by reforming interest and exchange rates, the central bank’s statistics department said in a report published Tuesday, Reuters reported. The report, published in the China Securities Journal, was released just days after China widened the yuan’s daily trading band from 0.5% to 1.0% and allowed banks to short sell a limited amount of US dollars. These reforms will help Chinese companies to escape domestic overcapacity and invest overseas, stepping into a gap in global investment left by Western companies and funds, the People’s Bank of China wrote in the report. “The yuan is not far from becoming an international reserve currency,” it said. The report also dismissed the idea that introducing more flexibility to the currency would invite destabilizing inflows of hot money.
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