As RMB rises, more financial reforms needed

Advanced Search

The story appears on

Page A7

May 25, 2015

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

As RMB rises, more financial reforms needed

By Lee Jong-Wha | May 25, 2015, Monday |

Print Edition

FOREIGN VIEWS

By the end of this year, the IMF will decide whether the Chinese renminbi will join the euro, the Japanese yen, the British pound and the US dollar in the basket of currencies that determines the value of its international reserve asset, the Special Drawing Right (SDR).

China is pushing hard for the renminbi’s inclusion. Should it be admitted?

The IMF created the SDR in 1969 to supplement existing reserve currencies, thereby providing the global financial system with additional liquidity.

As it stands, the SDR’s role remains largely limited to IMF operations; its share in global financial markets and central banks’ international reserves is negligible. Nonetheless, adding the renminbi to the SDR basket would be symbolically important, implying recognition of China’s growing global stature.

The renminbi is already a major currency for world trade and investment, and accounts for a growing share of international financial transactions and reserve holdings. To qualify for inclusion, the Chinese government has eased its capital controls and liberalized its financial markets considerably.

Inclusion in the SDR basket would require continuing this process, which, together with the renminbi’s emergence as a globally investable currency, would benefit the entire world economy.

The IMF’s largest shareholders — the US, Europe and Japan — should thus welcome the renminbi’s addition to the SDR basket. Yet opinions on the matter have been divided, with the US, in particular, reluctant to welcome China into the fold.

This is all the more problematic given that the 2008 financial crisis laid bare the international reserve system’s inadequacy when it comes to ensuring sufficient liquidity for emerging economies.

External shocks

Although emerging economies have since accumulated larger foreign-exchange reserves and strengthened financial supervision and regulation, they remain vulnerable to external shocks, especially from the US, the eurozone and Japan. All three have lately employed expansionary monetary policies; and, as the US Federal Reserve normalizes its policy, emerging economies will be hit again by a sudden withdrawal of global liquidity.

This continued vulnerability reflects a collective failure to reform the global monetary system — an imperative that People’s Bank of China (PBC) Governor Zhou Xiaochuan highlighted in early 2009. Per Zhou’s proposal, China has championed a transition to a multi-currency reserve system, in which the SDR and an internationalized renminbi would be used more widely, including in countries’ currency reserves.

But its attempt in 2010 to add its currency to the SDR basket failed, because the renminbi was not “freely usable.” Since then, China has implemented a series of reforms to increase the renminbi’s usage in foreign trade and direct investment, as well as in cross-border financial investment. Fourteen renminbi-clearing banks have been established worldwide.

Last year, the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect was launched to stimulate cross-border investment and capital-market development.

And China has signed bilateral currency-swap agreements with 28 central banks, including the Central Bank of Brazil, the Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England.

Overtaking the euro

This year, Chinese policymakers have signaled further financial liberalization by removing the domestic cap on banks’ deposit rates, thereby giving overseas institutional investors easier access to capital markets.

The PBC is also likely to widen the currency’s trading band and move toward a more flexible exchange-rate regime.

As a result of these efforts, the renminbi has emerged as the second most used currency in trade finance, overtaking the euro, and the fifth most used for international payments.

Moreover, it is increasingly preferred in currency-market transactions and official foreign-exchange reserves.

If China succeeds in developing a more convertible capital account and bolstering its financial system’s efficiency, the renminbi is likely to emerge as a new international reserve currency, complementing the US dollar and the euro.

This would benefit companies and central banks alike, by enabling them to diversify their foreign-currency holdings further.

History suggests that a shift in global currency dominance is likely to occur gradually. For now, China is focused on winning the renminbi’s inclusion, even with a small share, in the SDR currency basket. The IMF’s major shareholders should seriously consider it.

The renminbi’s continued internationalization, not to mention further progress on critical financial reforms, would contribute to the creation of a more stable and efficient global reserve system.

Lee Jong-Wha is a professor of economics and director of the Asiatic Research Institute at Korea University. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2015.www.project-syndicate.org. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.

Opinion

About Us
|
Terms of Use
|
RSS
|
Privacy Policy
|
Contact Us
|
Shanghai Call Center: 962288
|
Tip-off hotline: 52920043

沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
|
互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
|
网络视听许可证：0909346
|
广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
|
增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012

As RMB rises, more financial reforms needed

Email this to your friend