Chinese Renminbi – Squaring the circle
China’s exchange rate policy is one of many significant uncertainties or “known-unknowns” for 2017 (as it arguably was in 2016 and prior years).
The market’s focus is still very much on the rise in USD-CNY but Chinese policy-makers are keen to emphasise the importance of the Renminbi’s performance against a basket of currencies – the CNY Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER). This comes as no surprise.
The monthly pace of CNY NEER appreciation or depreciation has rarely exceeded 3% in the past seven years, suggesting that policy-makers have sought to control the Renminbi’s rate of change.
Large (and well documented) capital outflows from China have been the main source of Renminbi pressure but China’s current account surplus-to-GDP ratio has also edged lower to around 2.5% due to a rising deficit in the services balance. This perhaps dents the argument that the Renminbi is still materially undervalued.
Moreover, despite the Renminbi’s gain in competitiveness in the past year, China’s trade surplus has somewhat counter-intuitively shrunk, not increased. This may be due to price effects outweighing demand-effects (for exports) and still strong credit-fuelled Chinese imports.
In response to quarterly capital outflows of between $100bn and $200bn since late 2015, the PBoC intervened in the FX market to the tune of about $280bn in January-November.
This strong commitment likely reflects the perceived economic and geopolitical benefits of limiting the Renminbi’s depreciation.
Near-term, I think the PBoC may continue to see some value in a broadly stable Renminbi or only very modest CNY NEER depreciation. If capital outflows re-accelerate this would likely require the introduction of further capital controls and aggressive FX intervention. This is certainly an option in the short-run.
If capital outflows stabilise or recede, the PBoC may be able to slow or even stop FX intervention. This is not a totally unfeasible scenario if global yields stabilise and a slightly stronger CNY attracts capital back into China or if capital controls take greater effect.
In the more unlikely scenario whereby China experiences capital inflows, which last happened in Q1 2014, I would expect the PBoC to have limited appetite for rapid and/or sustained Renminbi appreciation and instead use this opportunity to rebuild FX reserves.