皇冠体育app

   

Time to move toward an open capital account

By Shi Jianhuai (皇冠体育app Daily)
Updated: 2007-06-22 10:09

Actually, the scheme of capital account control has been less strict than it is meant to be due to both internal and external pressure. As the third biggest trade power in the world, 皇冠体育app is seeing increasingly open trade. The free trade scheme is often used to facilitate capital flows across the border without being watched by the authorities. Some international hot money sneaks into 皇冠体育app's capital market with the help of exporters.

The financial opening-up has facilitated such money flows because the monetary authorities have no way to control foreign financial institutions in their business details.

The short-term foreign debt has been rapidly rising in recent years. The major source of such debt is the foreign invested financial institutions. The strong growth is propelled by the international expectation of a renminbi appreciation.

Moreover, it is now mission impossible for the monetary authority to approve every currency trade when the number of cases is so huge.

A pragmatic choice is to stop administrative control over the capital account, which is both costly and inefficient, and turn to a market-orientated governance.

A good example can be found in Chile, where all commercial banks and financial institutions must hand in a percentage from their foreign debts as a non-remunerated reserve requirement. The shorter the debts, the higher the percentage.

Such a policy tool over capital inflow is based on the rule of the market, which is better than administrative control. And it is also more flexible because the rate of the reserve requirement can be adjusted according to actual needs.

Special coverage:
Markets Watch

Related readings:
 皇冠体育app maintains surplus under current account
 皇冠体育app reaffirms policy on stable yuan 皇冠体育app urged to move more quickly on currency

A liberal capital account is one of the targets for financial reform. The key problem is timing the opening of the capital account, not whether or not it should be opened.

In my opinion, the capital account should be liberalized as soon as possible once the country is ready. And opening the account should be done gradually.

皇冠体育app is currently seeing sound economic growth, relatively low inflation, considerable surplus in foreign trade and fiscal budget, abundant reserves of foreign exchange and a currency with appreciating pressure.

皇冠体育app's financial reform has achieved remarkable progress. The State-owned commercial banks were financially restructured, the State-held shares in listed companies have been liquidized, a network of financial supervision has been established, and the marketization of the interest rate has been largely put in place.

All these conditions prove that now is a good time for 皇冠体育app to ease administrative control on the capital account and actively move toward liberalizing it.


 12

(For more biz stories, please visit )