Little noticed during last weekend’s milestone summit between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping was another landmark event: China’s currency hit a record high, reaching almost 6 yuan to the dollar. In recent years, one of the few things Republicans and Democrats could agree upon was that an artificially cheap yuan damaged U.S. exports and stole U.S. jobs. The […]
At the end of last year, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe fired a loud salvo. In a forceful attempt to kick start Japan‘s economy from its decade-long stupor, Abe leaned on the Bank of Japan to set a 2% inflation target. He threatened to pass a law to limit the central bank‘s independence if it […]
Six years ago, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao cautioned that China’s economy is “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable.” China has since doubled down on the economic model that prompted his concern. Mr. Wen spoke out in an attempt to change the course of an economy dangerously dependent on one lever to generate growth: heavy investment in the […]
OFFICIALS from the world’s biggest economies meet on February 15th-16th in Moscow on a mission to avert war. Not one with bombs and bullets, but a “currency war”. Finance ministers and central bankers worry that their peers in the G20 will devalue their currencies to boost exports and grow their economies at their neighbours’ expense. […]
Since World War II’s end, the dollar has been used to invoice most global trade, serving as the intermediary currency for clearing international payments among banks and dominating official foreign-exchange reserves. This arrangement has often been criticized, but is there any viable alternative? The problem for postwar Europe, mired in depression and inflation, was that […]
China’s central bank governor said convertibility will be the next step in the overhaul of the exchange-rate system as calls grow for the nation’s new leadership to deepen changes in the economy to sustain growth. “For the central bank, I think the next movement related to the yuan is going to be reform of convertibility,” Zhou Xiaochuan said at […]
China’s currency hit a 19-year high against the U.S. dollar on Friday. Not coincidentally, on the same day the yuan rose to 6.238 against the greenback, disgraced former Politburo member Bo Xilai suffered his latest indignity, with the official Xinhua News Agency announcing his removal from the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber-stamp legislature. “According to the law on […]
IN TOKYO last week the bigwigs of international finance paid close attention to a speech by Ben Bernanke, chairman of America’s Federal Reserve. His speech urged them, in effect, to pay less attention. Many policymakers in emerging markets complain that Fed easing destabilises their economies, contributing to higher inflation and asset prices. Mr Bernanke pointed […]
The directors of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank return to Tokyo this week for their annual meetings after a gap of 48 years. It’s a different Japan. The ageing of the host nation, the rise of China, the “shift” of the epicentre of global growth to mainland Asia, in more ways than […]
looking beyond borders 