The Offshore Renminbi

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.

The offshore currency market is a foundation of offshore bond market, helping well-established corporations in global financing. Following the global financial tsunami in 2008 and European debt crisis in 2009-2011, this book aims to document the latest issues, challenges, trends and thoughts relating to offshore currency markets in Asia.

A comprehensive guide to understanding and assimilating into dim sum bond markets The expansive growth of the dim sum bond market in the last five years has peaked investor interest and inspired companies to seek out investing opportunities that negate China's capital controls. In a four-pronged approach, Dim Sum Bonds examines the development of the dim sum bond market and its role in China's RMB internationalization policy, characteristics of dim sum bonds and its market, investors' investment objectives and the investment performance of dim sum bonds, motivations of issuers, and underwriters' roles in the dim sum bond market. You will familiarize yourself with every aspect of the dim sum bond market from an issuer, an investor, and an underwriter's perspective. Academics, financial advisors, investment bankers, underwriters, investors, and policy makers should not be without this informative and detailed guide to the offshore market central to China's internationalization of RMB. Written by Hung-Gay Fung, Glenn Chi-Wo Ko, and Jot Yau, all of whom are experts on the dim sum bond market Explains the rapidly expanding dim sum bond market and puts readers ahead of the curve Landmark issues, Chinese banks (China Development Bank), Infrastructure, red-chip companies (Sinotruk), and multinational corporations doing business in China (McDonald’s) are discussed in detail. Covering landmark issues from a variety of Chinese and multinational corporations, Dim Sum Bonds provides must-read manual to understanding the vast opportunities of this up-and-coming market.

Economic analysis of the future of the international monetary system and the USD, and the rising importance of the RMB.

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.

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.

A Brookings Institution Press and Asian Development Bank Institute publication Meet the next global currency: the Chinese renminbi, or the "redback." Following the global financial crisis of 2008, China's major monetary policy objective is the internationalization of the renminbi, that is, to create an inter-national role for its currency akin to the international role currently played by the U.S. dollar. Renminbi internationalization is a hot topic, for good reason. It is, essentially, a window onto the Chinese government's aspirations and the larger process of economic and financial transformation. Making the renminbi a global currency requires rebalancing the Chinese economy, developing the country's financial markets and opening them to the rest of the world, and moving to a more flexible exchange rate. In other words, the internationalization of the renminbi is a monetary and financial issue with much broader supra-monetary and financial implications. This book offers a new perspective on the larger issues of economic, financial, and institutional change in what will eventually be the world's largest economy.