China: Economic development hampered by huge forex reserves
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PublishDate:
2006-11-22 14:58:00
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Beijing - Based on its customary practice, China’s central bank will release the latest figure of its foreign exchange reserves in January next year. Related figures have shown that by the end of September this year, China’s foreign exchange reserves had already touched 987.9 billion US dollars, only 12.1 billion US dollars short of the one-trillion-US-dollar mark. As China’s foreign exchange reserves increase by 20 billion US dollars per month on average, the country’s foreign exchange reserves will surely hit the mark by the end of the year. Earlier, China already surpassed Japan to become the world’s biggest country in foreign exchange reserves.
The huge amount of foreign exchange reserves will brew great risks. When China’s foreign exchange reserves climb, the country will also face a greater loss from US dollar depreciation. Economist Ba Shusong once pointed out that although the value of foreign exchange reserves calculated in the US dollar will rise, as the purchasing power of the dollar is declining on the other hand, the value of the foreign exchange reserves that are calculated in gold and oil price will fall substantially. Thus, Chinese people’s national welfare will be lost.
The high foreign exchange reserves will also affect the macro economic control policy. Based on China’s foreign exchange scheme, the central government will have to issue more Renminbi to equal the amount of foreign currencies generated from corporate export. As a result, there will be a superfluous supply of Renminbi circlulating in the market which, in turn, will stimulate the fast growth of loan release and investment activities. This, of course, will adversely affect the country’s macro economic policy.
In the aspect of trade, the soaring growth of foreign exchange reserves might provide an alibi for the trade protectionists, and put Renminbi under a greater pressure for revaluation. In a recent article written by Fan Gang, the economist points out that when China’s foreign exchange reserves exceed the one-trillion-US-dollar mark, the country’s economic development will come under more attacks and a greater pressure.
At present, China has allocated a large proportion of its foreign exchange reserves in buying the low-interest US treasury bonds which, in many economists' view, is a huge waste of resources.
Source: Chinanews