PBOC announced last Friday to impose 20% reserve requirement ratio (RRR) on onshore (CNY) FX forward transactions. Despite the central bank’s denial, the move is obviously to moderate recent sharp depreciation of renminbi. Such measure was implemented on October...
Renminbi’s depreciation since April this year has accelerated over the past two months. While USDCNY has in aggregate rallied over +6% in June and July, renminbi’s weakness was less pronounced against a basket of currencies. The CEFTS index, the...
Inflation
Headline CPI in China climbed +0.1 percentage point to +1.9% y/y in June, in line with expectations. On monthly basis, inflation contracted -0.1%, compared with consensus of a +0.1% increase. Yet, this is the smallest contraction since March this...
Weakness in renminbi has accelerated recently, driven by Donald Trump’s new list of tariff against China announced in mid-June, PBOC’s RRR cut and the jump in risk aversion over the Chinese market. USDCNY’s rally of more than +4% over...
Yesterday, PBOC announced a -50 bps reduction in reserve requirement ratio (RRR) for commercial banks. The move, effective from July 5, aims at easing the tightening in credit condition with the injection of about RMB 700B of liquidity to...
We expect the slowdown in China’s economic growth would be increasingly evident in coming months, reflecting the rapid moderation in credit growth in the first half of the year. PBOC left its policy rate unchanged, although FOMC lifted the...
China’s official PMI report (focusing on big companies) signals improvement in both manufacturing and services sector. The Caixin/ Markit data (focusing on SMEs) suggest both sectors remained resilient in May. We believe the government’s policy shift, to prioritize over...
China’s macroeconomic data was mixed in April. Industrial production (IP) expanded +7% y/y, accelerating form +6% in March and consensus of +6.4%. Retail sales grew +9.4% y/y, easing from +10.1% in March. The market had anticipated a milder drop...
China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that manufacturing PMI eased to 51.4 in April, from 51.5 a month ago. This, however, came in better than consensus of 51.3. The non-manufacturing improved to 54.8 in April from 54.6 in the...
People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced to cut 100 bps in the reserve requirement ratio (RRR), effective from April 25, for large commercial banks, joint-stock banks, city commercial banks, rural commercial banks, and foreign banks. While it would be...
China’s macroeconomic data showed a mixed picture in March.
Growth in industrial production (IP) eased to +6% y/y, compared with consensus of +6.9% and January- February’s +7.2%. The inflation report released last week also showed that headline CPI slowed markedly...
Speaking at the Boao Forum, sometimes known as "Asian Davos", Chinese President Xi Jinping announced four major areas of reform in opening up the market. First, the government would “significantly” ease market access, lowering restrictions for foreign investment in...
Over the past months, US trade policy has been a major cause of the wax and wane of the financial markets. The White House has triggered a number of investigations under the rarely used 1972 US trade law since...
China's economic data beat expectations in February. Headline CPI improved to +29% y/y, beating expectations of +2.5%, from January's +1.5%. On the economic activity barometers, industrial production grew +7.2% y/y in February, exceeding expectations of +6.3% and January's +6.2%....
China's official PMIs surprised to the downside in February. Manufacturing PMI dropped -1 point to 50.3 in February, while non-manufacturing PMI slipped -0.9 point to 54.4. The readings came in weaker than expectations of 52.1 and 55 respectively....
China’s official manufacturing PMI slipped -0.3 point to 51.3 in January, compared consensus of 51.5, as almost all sub-indices dropped during the month. The non-manufacturing PMI added +0.3 point to 55.3, beating expectations of 55, in January. Note that...
China's economic activities ended last year with a strong tone. GDP growth expanded +6.8% y/y in 4Q17, beating consensus of +6.7%.Serctor-wise, growth in the services sector accelerated to +8.3%, from +8% in the third quarter. By contrast, growth...
Two issues happened in China have roiled the market over the past two days. While the adjustment of renminbi fixing mechanism has resulted in a weaker currency, a news report citing an anonymous Chinese official as recommending to trim or halt purchases of US Treasuries has sent the longer-dated US Treasury (UST) yield higher, thus steepening the UST yield curve. While the former reveals that the Chinese government continues to actually intervene the FX market, putting its commitment to internationalize the currency in question, the latter is merely an act to maintain currency stability and a response as the US-China trade friction once again heats up.
Overshadowed by a series of central bank meetings last week, China's macroeconomic data were mildly disappointing. Yet, this should not affect the country's growth to reach its full-year growth target of +6.5%. Indeed, the PBOC's monetary tightening on December 14, closely following the Fed's rate hike, is a manifestation that the government remains confident over the economic outlook. The three-day Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC) beginning today (December 18) would reveal China's economic policy and the closely-watched GDP growth target for 2018. We expect the politburo might revise lower the target from this year's +6.5%, and/ or adopt more flexibility in it language.
The Caixin manufacturing PMI for China slipped to 50.8 in November, from 51 in October. The reading also missed expectations of 51. Looking into the details, production and new orders increased at modest rates, while purchasing costs rose sharply. However, confidence towards the business outlook dropped to joint-lowest on record. As the agency noted, the manufacturing sector remained stable for most of November, despite 'some signs of weakness'. It forecast that the economy would remain stable for 4Q17. While growth should improve this year, when compared with 2016, it should decelerate in 2018. By contrast, the official manufacturing PMI rose +0.2 point to 51.8 in November this also beat expectations of a drop to 51.5. Non- manufacturing PMI increased +0.5 point to 54.8 last month. Divergence between official and private PMIs is nothing new. Part of the reason for the divergence is that the official data focus on large enterprises, while Caixin's focus on SMEs. This interpretation appears contradicting this month. Indeed, the official report suggests that SME PMI improved, while that for large companies slipped -0.2 point to 52.9 in November.