China Central Bank sets lowest RMB reference rate since 2022

China set its daily reference rate for the yuan at a level that was significantly weaker than estimated by traders and analysts, reports Bloomberg. The People’s Bank of China set the so-called fixing at 7.0733 per dollar, 164 pips from the average estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

The gap between the fixing, which limits the onshore yuan’s moves by 2% on either side, and the forecast was the widest to the weak side since February 2022.

The yuan fell 0.1% in both onshore and overseas trading Thursday morning, after rising to the strongest level versus the dollar in more than a year this week. Versus a variety of other currencies, it has been trading near the highest since April.