Development of the Renminbi Market in Hong Kong SAR


Book Description

Offshore use of the renminbi expanded rapidly in Hong Kong SAR as China sought to develop an international role for its currency while maintaining capital controls. This prompts two questions addressed in this paper: How far advanced is renminbi internationalization? And, what role does Chinese capital account liberalization play? The first is addressed by testing the extent of integration of offshore and onshore markets for the renminbi using a Threshold Autoregression (TAR) model and finds that there are substantial unexploited arbitrage opportunities. A VAR model is used to indentify factors contributing to this limited market integration and finds that capital controls and shifts in global market sentiment explain much of the divergence in onshore and offshore renminbi exchange rates. To address the second question, the paper shows how capital account measures have been used to promote offshore use of the renminbi more actively in the wake of the global financial crisis, but that this was done asymmetrically with controls on inflows eased to a greater extent than on outflows. It concludes that a more balanced liberalization process will sustain progress in renminbi internationalization.







The Offshore Renminbi


Book Description

The rise of the renminbi and what it means for forex markets Chinese authorities have ambitious plans to "internationalize" the renminbi, transforming it from a tightly controlled domestic legal tender into a global currency for international trade, held by both private and public sector asset managers. The Offshore Renminbi examines this impending currency revolution, outlining why the emergence of China as a major economic power will likely soon be matched by a transformation of the renminbi's role in the global financial system. It explains how new markets for "offshore" renminbi are developing outside mainland China since the country is not yet ready to fully open up its economy to international capital flows, and the regulations that govern them. The potential growth for the renminbi market is vast, thanks to China's role in the global trading community. The early stages of the internationalization effort were small-scale, but momentum has greatly increased over the past 18 months, making this book more relevant than ever. These developments offer new opportunities (and challenges) for corporate treasurers and investors, as China's profound economic success and growing prominence in global trade may transform offshore renminbi into a new global reserve currency and a legitimate competitor to the U.S. dollar. Explores how the "internationalization" of the renminbi is likely to yield a new global currency to rival the U.S. dollar Examines "offshore" renminbi and the host of new financial markets they have created, from a spot FX market to Dim Sum bonds in Hong Kong Covers broad themes of interest to general readers and policymakers, as well as more detailed issues of practical and direct importance to corporate treasurers and investors The Chinese government has ambitious plans to make the renminbi a global currency. The Offshore Renminbi explains the complexities of this strategy and the dramatic implications for the global FX markets.




One Currency, Two Markets


Book Description

"This study presents evidence of the renminbi's growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region. The CNH market -the offshore renminbi foreign exchange market in Hong Kong SAR - is found to exert an effect on Asian currencies that is distinct from that of the onshore (CNY) market. Changes in the RMB/USD rates in both markets have a statistically and economically significant impact on changes in Asian currency rates against the US dollar, even after controlling for other major currency moves and the transmission of China's monetary policy to the region. The continuing growth of the offshore renminbi market suggests that the influence of the CNH (Offshore RMB) market is rising, but how long the independent impact will last will likely depend on China's progress in liberalising its capital account. The findings also suggest that China's regional influence is increasingly transmitted through financial channels."--Abstract.




Renminbi Trade Settlement as a Catalyst to Hong Kong's Development as an Offshore Renminbi Center


Book Description

Renminbi settlement has become the preferred mode of settlement for mainland Chinese imports, with most of the imports settled this way coming from Hong Kong. As a result, renminbi deposits in Hong Kong have increased sharply, as has the issuance of dim sum bonds. It will be interesting to see what routes are opened up to enable this money to find its way back from Hong Kong's offshore renminbi market to the mainland and whether Japanese companies take advantage of the market to issue dim sum bonds.




Offshore Renminbi Forward Market Development and Its Implication for the Currency Internationalization Process


Book Description

China has become the second-largest economy by nominal GDP and the world's largest economy after adjusting purchasing power by the end of 20141. Meanwhile, China is also the largest trading nation in the world. Since the late 2000s, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) has sought to internationalize the renminbi, the official currency of China, to improve the international use of the renminbi and in turn to stimulate monetary efficiency. The offshore renminbi market officially launched in Hong Kong SAR in July 2010 and the offshore deliverable forward market was established two months later. This paper aims to provide a detailed review of the renminbi internationalization process, particularly the foreign exchange market, including the deliverable forward market in the offshore setting. The review will test the correlations among the onshore deliverable forwards, the offshore deliverable forwards, and non-deliverable forwards by conducting time-series analyses. Moreover, interest rate parity theory is utilized to price the theoretical offshore deliverable forwards. Substantial deviations are observed and documented between the theoretical and actual offshore deliverable forward rates. Furthermore, regression analyses are adopted to provide empirical evidence to explain the possible reasons affecting the prices of the offshore renminbi deliverable forwards and the onshore deliverable forwards, also, the price differential between these two products. Among these reasons, exchange rate expectation, macroeconomic sentiment and market liquidity show statistically significant impact. Finally, the paper will discuss the possible implications of the preceding analyses for the development of the offshore deliverable forward market and the renminbi internationalization process.




RMB Internationalization


Book Description

Among emerging market currencies, the RMB holds the most potential to become widely used internationally, due to China‘s large economic size, diversified trade structure and network, macroeconomic stability, and high growth rates - both current and expected. Yet, foreign access to RMB-denominated assets that could act as global stores of value remains limited due to extensive restrictions on capitals flows. At the same time, the rapid expansion of RMB trade settlement and issuance of RMB-denominated bonds by the Chinese government and corporates in Hong Kong, SAR have created some feedback channels across onshore (CNY) and offshore (CNH) RMB markets. We employed a bivariate GARCH model to understand the inter-linkages between onshore and offshore markets and found that, while developments in the onshore spot market exert an influence on the offshore spot market, offshore forward rates have a predictive impact on onshore forward rates. We also find evidence of volatility spillovers between two markets. Overtime, those spillover channels would be expected to grow as the offshore market further develops.




Hong Kong SAR Monetary and Exchange Rate Challenges


Book Description

Hong Kong SAR is now highly unusual as a large economy running a currency board system that pegs the Hong Kong Dollar to the US Dollar. This volume explores the origins and persistence of this system, presenting the viewpoint of several of the main protagonists in the operation of the currency board since 1983 as well as new research by academics.




Hong Kong’s Growth Synchronization with China and the U.S.


Book Description

This paper investigates the synchronization of Hong Kong SAR’s economic growth with mainland China and the United States. This paper identifies trends of economic growth based on the permanent income hypothesis. Specifically, the paper confirms whether real consumption in Hong Kong SAR and mainland China satisfy the permanent income hypothesis, at least in a weak form. It then identifies the permanent and transitory components of income of each economy using a simple state-space model. It uses structural vector autoregression models to analyze how permanent and transitory shocks originating from mainland China and the United States affect the Hong Kong economy, and how such influences evolve over time. The paper’s main findings suggest that transitory shocks from the United States remain a major driving force behind Hong Kong SAR’s business cycle fluctuations. On the other hand, permanent shocks from mainland China have a larger impact on Hong Kong SAR’s trend growth.




Rmb Exchange Rate, The: Past, Current, And Future


Book Description

Over the past two decades, China's robust economic performance has propelled it to the world stage. At the same time, the world has increasingly scrutinized China's economic policies and activities. One of the hotly contested issues is China's foreign exchange rate policy. China's current reform and modernization policies to convert its centrally planned economy towards a market-driven one could hardly draw on experiences of other countries.This book provides a succinct and up-to-date account of China's exchange rate policy including the currency undervaluation debate and the internationalization of its currency. It begins with a brief history of the modern China's foreign exchange rate policy. In particular, it highlights the three Chinese policy characteristics; namely, independence, controllability and practicability, and graduality. This prologue helps to interpret China's policy on its currency, the renminbi (RMB); including its recent initiatives to promote the international use of its currency.The book covers the basic theoretical and empirical issues that are relevant for determining the equilibrium value of the RMB exchange rate and, hence, its degree of misalignment. Then it evaluates the controversy surrounding the RMB valuation debate, and highlights the sensitivity of empirical estimates of the degree of misalignment to alternative presumptions.The book also examines the timely issues related to China's recent efforts in promoting the use of its currency in the global financial market. After describing the background of China's recent efforts to internationalize the RMB, the book a) discusses the main promotional policies, including the recent Qianhai project and Shanghai Free Trade Zone initiative, b) evaluates the current status of the offshore RMB market, the level of international use of the RMB and the admission to the SDR basket, and c) assesses the future prospects of the RMB to be a global currency.