人民币屡创新低，央行将努力扭转贬值预期

前中国央行货币政策委员会委员本周二称，中国设定人民币汇率的新方式“鼓励了”资本的外流，而且导致了人民币的日渐贬值。

余永定《上海证券新闻》中写道，人民银行所采取的人民币中间价设定新机制并没有真正实现汇率的“双向波动”，而且还减少了外汇储备。

余永定写道，“防止人民币实现市场供需平衡的举措在客观上是拒绝增加资本外流的成本。”余曾担任中国人民银行顾问，并曾担任其货币政策委员会委员。

“此举甚至在鼓励资本外流。”

在8月份做出调整之前，人民银行通过货币市场做市商的报价来设定每日的中间价，而人民币中间价的新设定机制基于前一天的收盘价，并参考了一揽子货币的汇率。

国际货币基金组织副总裁大卫·利普顿周二在北京举行的某论坛上指出，在过去几年中，人民银行决定给予一揽子货币更多的关注，而不是让人民币唯美元马首是瞻。

利普顿表示，“主要的一点在于，人民银行逐渐开始让灵活性和市场力量发挥决定性的作用，我们也看到，人民币有意向一揽子货币看齐，而不是某一单一的货币。”

人民币兑美元的汇率今年下跌了6.1%，周二降至8年半以来的最低点。这个月以来，这一汇率下探了1.6%。

路透社上周称，中国决策者准备放缓人民币的跌幅，因为他们害怕人民币的暴跌，尤其是跌破7的心理底线，会引发资本的迅速撤离。

官方媒体《经济日报》周二在评论中指出，中国必须依靠结构性改革来扭转人民币的贬值预期。

中国社科院国家智囊团院士余永定在周二写道，货币政策的独立受到了人民币汇率新设定机制的影响，它进一步恶化了因资本管制而引发的市场扭曲。

然而，余还提到，鉴于中国的经济基本面，人民币不会出现大幅贬值。

余说：“我们还有资本管制这一最后的防御手段。我们没有必要对人民币短期的波动性贬值感到过度担忧。”

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

The new way China fixes the yuan exchange rate “encourages” capital flight and has led to a gradual depreciation of the currency, a former member of the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee said on Tuesday.

Yu Yongding wrote in the Shanghai Securities News that the new mechanism adopted by the People’s Bank of China to set the yuan’s midpoint rate did not allow for “true two-way volatility” in the exchange rate, and had hurt foreign exchange reserves as a result.

“Preventing the yuan from reaching market equilibrium is objectively a rejection of raising the cost of capital flight,” wrote Yu, a former adviser to the PBOC and one-time member of its monetary policy committee.

“It even encourages capital flight.”

Before the changes adopted in August, the PBOC set the daily fixing by asking currency market makers for price quotations. The new mechanism to fix the yuan midpoint is based on the closing price from a day earlier and by reference to a basket of currencies.

International Monetary Fund Deputy Managing Director David Lipton said at a forum in Beijing on Tuesday that over the past several years the PBOC decided to give more weight to the basket rather than think about yuan parity just with the dollar.

“The main point is that more and more the PBOC is allowing flexibility and market forces to be the determining factor and what we’re seeing is that the RMB tends to move more with the basket rather than any particular currency,” said Lipton.

The yuan, also known as the renminbi, has fallen 6.1% against the dollar so far this year, and hovered near an 8-1/2-year low on Tuesday. So far this month it has lost around 1.6% against the greenback.

Reuters reported last week that Chinese policymakers were prepared to slow the yuan’s decline because they feared rapid capital flight if the currency fell too quickly, and especially if it fell through the psychologically important 7-per-dollar level.

A commentary on Tuesday in the official Economic Daily newspaper said that China must rely on structural reforms to reverse expectations for yuan depreciation.

Yu, an academic at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences state think tank, wrote on Tuesday that the independence of monetary policy had been affected by the new yuan fixing mechanism and it had worsened the market distortions caused by capital controls.

However, Yu also noted that Chinese economic fundamentals did not support a sharp depreciation in the yuan.

“We have capital controls as the last line of defense. It is not necessary for us to worry too much about the short-term and volatile depreciation in the yuan,” Yu said.