China said it will let companies and individuals make investments overseas
for the first time, a policy shift that could temporarily ease immediate U.S.
pressure on Beijing to revalue its currency, the yuan.
The news comes ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's planned April 20 visit
to the White House. While the moves fall short of an outright increase in the
value of the yuan -- which the U.S. has called for -- the technical changes
could affect China's currency exchange-rate system and may strengthen the yuan's
value anyway.
The new investment rules from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange
allow professionals to buy overseas stocks and make investments outside of
China. The rules also let Chinese individuals buy at least $20,000 in foreign
currency each year, while companies will be able to hold more in foreign
currencies than currently allowed. The changes take effect May 1.
The Treasury Department, the lead U.S. agency on currency issues, greeted the
announcement as a small step in the right direction. "What we're seeing is
constant, incremental reform," said Tim Adams, undersecretary of the Treasury
for international affairs. But, he added, the Chinese "still have a long way to
go, and we would urge them to speed up the pace."
America's strong
appetite for Chinese goods has created a large US trade deficit with China. A
stronger yuan would be a step toward addressing that imbalance by making Chinese
goods more expensive and US goods cheaper for Chinese consumers.
Foreign-exchange analysts said the move could represent the latest step in a
gradual move by China toward a more open, market-based currency. It follows
Beijing's decision last July to revalue the yuan and let it trade against a
basket of currencies, and a move in January to permit foreign banks to trade
yuan with each other, rather than using the government as an intermediary.
Many analysts expect the new rules will encourage Chinese investors to invest
some of their savings abroad in U.S. Treasurys, European bonds -- and perhaps
even into some foreign stocks -- because yields are higher than at home.
But analysts suggested that the amount of money flowing abroad was unlikely
to be enough to have a significant impact on currency values or in the stock or
bond markets receiving the Chinese money. "The foreign-exchange market is so big
it would take a large number of Chinese all sending money abroad over a short
period of time to have an effect," said Rebecca Patterson, currency strategist
at J.P. Morgan in New York.
Marc Chandler, a currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, noted that
U.S. and other foreign companies continue to make big-ticket investments in
China, while hedge funds and other money managers are speculating on the
currency and investing in the stock markets. These money flows are seen as more
powerful than the potential new flows of Chinese money abroad.
Chinese authorities seem to be betting that the private sector's hunger for
those assets -- such as U.S. stocks and bonds -- will continue to prop up the
dollar. That would give China a ready response to U.S. political pressure: Blame
the market, not Beijing.
"To some extent, it's also hoisting the Treasury Department on the petard of
its own language about exchange-rate flexibility and market determination,
because it's saying, 'We're moving toward the market,' " said William R. Cline,
senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics, a nonpartisan
Washington, D.C., think tank.
It isn't hard to see why some Chinese money would head overseas. Though
China's stock markets have soared this year, they are rebounding from a
four-year sell-off and are considered highly speculative and risky compared with
more-developed markets abroad. Where China's one-year bank deposit rate has been
unchanged for years at 2.25%, Chinese investors could get yields of more than
twice that by buying U.S. or European government bonds.
While Americans and others in the developed world are
free to invest their money abroad or own foreign currencies, China is among
several emerging markets -- along with South Korea, India and Brazil -- that
have restricted the ability of individuals to invest abroad.