Category Archives: Inflation

Goldman on monetary policy in the BRICs

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Excellent recap of what’s happening through the eyes of Wall St. in the BRICS.

To be noted:

The BRICS all seem to be fighting inflation, which means the problem is that bad.

Unfortunately, hiking rates via direct rate hikes, reserve requirement hikes, and the like, which they all are doing, add to aggregate demand through the interest income channels, making their inflations that much worse. (That’s the price of being out of paradigm, as reinforced by analysts who are also out of paradigm)

Some are using credit controls, which do slow demand, as does fiscal tightening which generally happens through automatic stabilizers that work through higher nominal growth, including reduced transfer payments and higher tax receipts.

In general, this type of thing tends to end with a very hard landing, which their equity markets may be starting to discount.

BRICs Monthly : 11/04 – Monetary Policy in the BRICs

Published April 28, 2011

The BRICs’ central banks rely on a variety of tools to adjust monetary policy. As output gaps have closed and inflation pressures have accelerated, policy stances in the BRICs have shifted meaningfully towards tightening. We expect policy to continue to tighten in the coming months via a combination of policy rate hikes, reserve ratio requirement hikes and other measures.

There is a large degree of variation in the stated goals of monetary policy and the tools used to achieve those goals, both among the BRICs and relative to the advanced economies. The BRICs (like many other emerging markets) rely more heavily on a broader set of tools than is typical in the developed world. These include several policy rates, reserve ratio requirements, open market operations and FX intervention. As a result, looking at the policy rate alone does not provide an accurate picture of the overall monetary policy stance.

Over the past year, BRICs’ policymakers have shifted from an accommodative policy stance (in response to the financial crisis) to tightening (in response to closing output gaps and rising inflation pressures). However, the unusual shape of the global recovery—in which most of the BRICs and other EMs have rebounded quickly, while the developed world has lagged behind—has brought about a shift in the way in which the BRICs have tightened monetary policy. This time around, most have relied less on policy rate hikes and more on alternative tools.

While the BRICs have tightened monetary policy meaningfully, we believe that more is on the way. We expect Brazil, India and Russia to hike their policy rate by another 125bp and China to hike by 25bp by end-2011. In addition, we expect further tightening through the exchange rate, the reserve requirement ratio and other measures.

Monetary Policy in the BRICs

There is a large degree of variation in the stated goals of monetary policy and the tools used to achieve those goals, both among the BRICs and relative to advanced countries. The BRICs (like many other EMs) rely more heavily on a broader set of tools than is typical in the developed world. Hence, looking at the policy rate alone does not provide an accurate picture of their monetary policy stance.

Brazil’s monetary policy framework has shifted dramatically over the past two decades. As it struggled against hyper- and high inflation in the early 1990s, the government first introduced a period of extremely high interest rates (over 50%) in 1994, and then transitioned in 1995 to a soft exchange rate peg accompanied by high and volatile interest rates. In 1999, Brazil shifted to its current inflation-targeting regime. The current inflation target is set at 4.5%, with a relatively wide band of +/- 2% and no repercussions if the target is missed (as it has been for the past three years). To this end, COPOM targets the SELIC interest rate (the overnight interbank rate).

China uses a more eclectic form of monetary policy that involves a range of players, objectives and instruments. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is the official implementer, but the central government often weighs heavily on the PBoC’s decisions. The Bank does not hold regular policy meetings and policy changes are typically released after the close of the local market without advance notice. The Monetary Policy Committee of the PBoC is an advisory body, which does not determine policy direction. Chinese monetary policy has an official quad mandate of growth, employment, inflation and a balanced external account. To achieve these goals, the PBoC uses a range of quantity- and price-based mechanisms, such that there is no single policy instrument that can be used as a main indicator of its monetary policy stance at any given time. Quantity-based tools include reserve requirement (RRR) changes and credit controls. Price-based tools include changes in the benchmark deposit and lending interest rates.

India’s monetary policy is conducted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which has the dual mandate of price stability and the provision of credit to productive sectors to support growth. To this end, the RBI targets the interest rate corridor for overnight money market rates, with the reverse-repo rate as the floor and the repo rate as the ceiling. The RBI also utilises open market operations and two types of reserve ratio requirements (the cash reserve ratio and the statutory liquidity ratio).

In Russia, monetary policy is set by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). Until recently, the CBR concentrated on exchange rate stability and allowed inflation to vary. Its main policy rates are the overnight deposit rate and the 1-week minimum repo rate, although these historically have played a subordinate role to FX intervention. The CBR also monitors liquidity through reserve requirements, FX interventions and open market operations.

Shift in BRICs’ Approach to Monetary Tightening

The unusual shape of the global recovery—in which most of the BRICs and other EMs have rebounded quickly, while the developed world has lagged—has brought about a shift in the way in which the BRICs have tightened monetary policy.

Policymakers in Brazil have been hesitant to raise rates as aggressively as they normally would in response to the current high-growth/high-inflation domestic cyclical picture, given their concern that this would attract greater capital inflows. Instead, they have increasingly relied on two alternative mechanisms to tighten the overall policy stance: (1) a gradual FX appreciation and (2) several ‘macro-prudential’ measures that slow the pace of new credit concessions, raise the cost and lengthen the maturity of new loans, and raise the tax on foreign fixed income inflows.

Over the recent cycle, Chinese policymakers have relied most heavily on explicit and implicit credit controls, including window guidance meetings and the Dynamic Differentiated RRR System (under which the PBoC imposes a differentiated RRR for some banks but removes it for others, if they have been following government lending controls). Frequent RRR hikes have generally not produced any net tightening, as they were counterbalanced by increased FX inflows and expiring central bank bills. Likewise, recent interest rate hikes have been an effective signalling device but have been too small in magnitude to have a large impact.

In India, the RBI has kept liquidity tight in order to pass policy rate hikes through to bank deposit and lending rates. However, excessively tight and volatile liquidity has caused overnight borrowing rates to fluctuate widely in recent months, such that market participants have focused more on liquidity than policy rate actions in determining the direction and magnitude of interest rates at the short end. In an effort to address this issue and increase transparency, the RBI has proposed shifting to a single policy rate target (the repo rate) while simultaneously improving its control over system-wide liquidity.

Russia has seen the largest change in its monetary policy framework since the onset of the financial crisis. The CBR has shifted towards more FX flexibility with a greater focus on inflation, with the goal of an eventual move towards an inflation targeting regime (although, as the CBR has highlighted, such a move would ultimately be a government decision, which is unlikely to be realised in the absence of a strong political will to make the change). To this end, the CBR has moved towards interest rates as its primary monetary policy tool, and has scaled down its presence in the FX markets. It now sterilizes most FX interventions so as not to impact money supply growth. It has also relied more heavily on reserve requirement changes in recent months, in an effort to signal tightening liquidity.

More Tightening to Come

While the BRICs have meaningfully tightened monetary policy via a variety of tools, we believe more is needed. Demand-driven inflationary pressures are picking up as output gaps close, contributing to an acceleration in core inflation. Moreover, the BRICs also face large food and energy price spikes, which are likely to continue to push up headline inflation at least through the summer. In addition, fiscal policy is not turning sufficiently contractionary, leaving the burden of tightening on monetary policymakers.

In Brazil, we expect five more SELIC hikes by 25bp per meeting and further macro-prudential measures. For China, we forecast at least one more rate hike (25bp in 2011Q2), further currency appreciation (6% annualised), liquidity absorption measures through RRR hikes and open market operations, and tight control over credit issuance. We have a much more hawkish view of India than consensus, where we now expect the RBI to hike policy rates by another 125bp in 2011. Russia’s CBR should hike deposit and repo rates by 150bp and 125bp respectively by end-2011.

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China’s dollar reserves being used to fight inflation?

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This may be some of the most recent data:

The SAFE Releases Data on Chinas External Debt at the End of September 2010

Excerpt: “At the end of September 2010, China’s outstanding external debt (excluding that of Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR, and Taiwan Province) reached USD546.449 billion. Specifically, the outstanding registered external debt reached USD326.549 billion and the balance of trade credit totaled USD219.9 billion. ”

Then Mktwatch reported this end Dec 2010:

China’s external debt nears $550 billion: Safe

Escerpt: “HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China’s external debt was $548.938 billion at the end of 2010, compared to $546 billion owed at the end of the third quarter, according to newswire reports Thursday that cited figures released by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. Of that total, China’s short-term debt was $375.7 billion, or equivalent to 13.2% of China’s foreign exchange reserves, the agency said”

CAUTION,THIS IS ALL VERY PRELIMINARY AND COULD PROVE TO BE ENTIRELY WRONG

I got this response, and I’m looking further into it.

I don’t think this includes dollar debt of state banks and state owned enterprises.

What it means is that China’s net reserves aren’t as high as generally believed, and that they are being ‘spent/lent’ by borrowing dollars and then spending, leaving the gross, headline reserve number intact, rather than spending the reserves directly.

They could even be buying their own currency to drive it higher to fight inflation.

This would be an interesting, quasi desperation move, as it would mean they are willing to risk export markets to try to keep prices in check.

It would also help explain the downward drift in the dollar over the last 6 months or so.

And currency support under these circumstances is also, in general, unsustainable. If the trade flows have turned against them due to inflation, they will burn through all their reserves trying to support their currency without a lot more fiscal tightening at all levels, and a very hard landing as well. And even that might not be enough, depending on how institutionalized the inflation is.

All speculation on my part at this point.

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from Press Conference

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I thought he did a AAA job within his paradigm.

The answers on the dollar were spot on- ultimately the dollar is worth what it can buy, so ‘low inflation’ is a strong dollar policy in the long term. It’s pretty much the purchasing power parity argument. Additionally, he said a strong economy helps the dollar, citing the capital inflow channel, probably a reference to China and other emerging market nations. And I might have added the fiscal tightening channel, as strong economies tend to cause federal deficits to fall via automatic fiscal stabilizers.

Interestingly, he did not mention specifically how higher oil prices, set by a foreign monopolist, continue to work against the dollar.

Nor how highly deflationary policies in other currencies tend to strengthen those currencies relative to the dollar.

And there was no mention of how portfolio shifting alters the dollar, which may be the largest driver currently.

Let me suggest, however, it would have been more nearly correct for him to have said the policy of low inflation and strong growth also happens to support the dollar, rather than imply a strong dollar was the policy variable.

He remains out of paradigm on the QE issue, still not realizing it’s entirely about price and not quantity, but that was to be expected.

The more dovish tone from the FOMC indicates some fundamental insecurity about the economy. Yes, they remain moderately optimistic, but probably continue to worry disproportionately about the downside risks. They see downside risks to demand everywhere from the euro zone and the UK, to Japan and China, and, though recognizing nothing of consequence has happened yet, they hear the fiscal sabre rattling from both the left and the right. And they see it’s unlikely for the housing channel to provide much support in the near future as it’s done in previous cycle.

Also, second chance to buy my 100oz gold bar at the current spot price of gold!
When I offered it for sale when gold was $1,200, no one wanted it so I still have it.

:)


Karim writes:

1) Extended period means a ‘couple of meetings’.
2) Q1 GDP weakness transitory (i.e., they didn’t alter the outlook for rest of f/cast period) due to
   a. timing of defense outlays
   b. timing of export shipments
   c. weather
3) No fiscal measures that have been announced so far have altered their near-term outlook
4) Impact of Japan supply disruptions ‘moderate and temporary’
5) Strong and stable dollar in U.S. best interest

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FOMC Statement

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Also note that long term forecasts continue to assume ‘appropriate monetary policy’

This means the forecasts contain the assumption that the Fed can hit it’s long term goals for inflation and unemployment by adjusting ‘monetary policy’

In other words, the presumption of being able to hit their targets means the longer term forecasts are nothing more than the their targets.

This is in contrast with non Fed forecasters, who attempt to forecast actual results, which while they do incorporate assumptions about monetary policy, do not necessarily assume those Fed policy adjustments will be successful.


Karim writes:

  • Mid-point of 2012 Core PCE forecast now 1.55%! Rates wont be 25bps in that event
  • 2011 GDP growth shaved lower by 0.3% (now 3.25%)
  • 2012 GDP growth lower by 0.1% (now 3.85%)
  • Unemployment rate lower by 0.35% in 2011 (now 8.55% by Q4) and lower by 0.1% next year (now 7.75%).

LAST STATEMENT (MARCH) AND FORECASTS (JANUARY)

Federal Reserve Press Release
Release Date: March 15, 2011
For immediate release

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January suggests that the economic recovery is on a firmer footing, and overall conditions in the labor market appear to be improving gradually. Household spending and business investment in equipment and software continue to expand. However, investment in nonresidential structures is still weak, and the housing sector continues to be depressed. Commodity prices have risen significantly since the summer, and concerns about global supplies of crude oil have contributed to a sharp run-up in oil prices in recent weeks. Nonetheless, longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable, and measures of underlying inflation have been subdued.

Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. Currently, the unemployment rate remains elevated, and measures of underlying inflation continue to be somewhat low, relative to levels that the Committee judges to be consistent, over the longer run, with its dual mandate. The recent increases in the prices of energy and other commodities are currently putting upward pressure on inflation. The Committee expects these effects to be transitory, but it will pay close attention to the evolution of inflation and inflation expectations. The Committee continues to anticipate a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability.

To promote a stronger pace of economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the Committee decided today to continue expanding its holdings of securities as announced in November. In particular, the Committee is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings and intends to purchase $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011. The Committee will regularly review the pace of its securities purchases and the overall size of the asset-purchase program in light of incoming information and will adjust the program as needed to best foster maximum employment and price stability.

The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period.

The Committee will continue to monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and will employ its policy tools as necessary to support the economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate.

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MBA’s index of loan requests for home purchases tumbled 13.6 percent

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This is disturbing, along with still weak housing price indicators, and the ongoing downward revisions to GDP forecasts, as aggregate demand remains under international attack on all fronts.

On the govt side, China is cutting demand to fight inflation, with India and Brazil presumed to be doing same. Austerity measures continue to bite in the UK and the euro zone, and are looming in the US.

On the private credit expansion side, regulatory over reach continues to restrict lending by the US banking system, and particularly with the small banks. This limits both bank and non bank lending, as the non bank lending is most often at least indirectly dependent on bank lending.

Additionally, the rising costs of food and fuel are taking purchasing power from those with the higher propensities to consume and shifting it to those with far lower propensities to consume.

And, of course, ongoing QE continues to remove interest income from the economy, as does the shift of interest income from savers to bank and other lender net interest margins, in a process that has yet to reach the national debate as a point of discussion.

Other commodity prices also continue to rise as hoarding from pension funds and the like via passive commodity strategies continues to expand globally.

This sends price signals that increase supply, which means human beings are being mobilized to produce stockpiles of gold, silver, and other metals and commodities not to ever be used for real consumption, but to forever remain as ‘reserves’ to index financial performance as demanded by current institutional structures. This is a monumental waste of human endeavor as well as the real resources, including energy, that are committed to this process.

So at the macro level we are removing teachers from what have become over crowded classrooms, removing nurses from neglected patients, and removing workers from building, repairing, and maintaining our homes and other infrastructure, to send them to either the unemployment lines or the gold mines.

And because they think at any moment we can suddenly become the next Greece, both sides agree with the necessity and urgency of promoting this policy.

Mortgage Applications Fell Last Week: MBA

April 27 (Reuters) — Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week as higher insurance premiums for government-insured loans sapped demand, an industry group said Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, fell 5.6 percent in the week ended April 22.

“Purchase applications fell last week, driven primarily by a sharp decrease in government purchase applications as new, higher Federal Housing Administration premiums went into effect,” Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s vice president of research and economics, said in a statement.

The decline reverses a recent increase in government purchase applications, which was likely due to borrowers trying to beat the deadline, Fratantoni said.

The MBA’s seasonally adjusted index of loan requests for home purchases tumbled 13.6 percent, while the gauge of refinancing applications slipped 0.6 percent.

Fixed 30-year mortgage rates averaged 4.80 percent in the week, easing from 4.83 percent the week before.

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Euro-Area Debt Reaches Record 85.1% of GDP as Crisis Festers

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It’s hard to say from the headlines whether proactive deficit reduction measures are slowing the economies to the point where the slowing is causing their deficits to increase.

However, if that is the case, continuing their deficit reduction efforts will only make things worse, to the point of forcing social upheaval.

And the rising deficits will begin to weaken the euro, as the deficit reduction that initially worked to strengthen the euro reverse.

And higher rates from the ECB will only serve to further increase national government deficits via higher interest payments by those same governments.

This also makes euro ‘easier to get’ and thereby weakens the currency.

Yes, the euro zone is seeing ‘inflation’, as they define it, moving higher, but under current conditions I don’t see any channel from rate hikes to lower ‘inflation’, again as they define it. But I do see how higher rates can instead add to the general price level through income interest and cost channels. All of which would be exacerbated should this policy also cause the euro to depreciate.

With regards to funding, there is nothing operationally to stop the ECB from, for all practical purposes, funding/backstopping the entire banking system as well as the national governments.

The question is the political will, which is not quantifiable.

And the solution remains painfully simple- the ECB can simply announce an annual payment of 10% of the euro zone’s gdp to the national governments on a per capita basis.

This will have no effect on inflation as it won’t get spent. It will only serve to allow all of the national governments to borrow at the ECB’s target rate, which would lower funding costs for the nations currently paying premiums for funding.

This will also give the ECB a lever to control deficits- the threat of suspending a nation’s funding if it is not in compliance.

And by removing the threat of market discipline from funding, the region would be free to set their stability and growth pact deficit targets at levels designed to achieve their macro economic goals for employment, output, and price stability.

Euro-Area Debt Reaches Record 85.1% of GDP as Crisis Festers

(Bloomberg) Euro-area debt reached a record in 2010. Debt rose in all 16 countries that were using the euro last year, lifting the bloc’s average to 85.1 percent of gross domestic product from 79.3 percent in 2009, the European Union’s statistics office said. Greece’s deficit topped expectations and debt ballooned to 142.8 percent of GDP, the highest in the euro’s 12-year history. Ireland’s debt surged the most, by 30.6 percentage points to 96.2 percent of GDP. Contingent liabilities from guaranteeing the banking system after the 2008 financial panic now amount to 6.5 percent of GDP, down from 8.6 percent in 2009, Eurostat said.

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Dollar index remains in decline

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With crude oil back up, the dollar has resumed it’s slide vs the other currencies. And odds are West Texas crude converges to Brent, which remains over $10 per barrel higher at about $124/barrel when/as the Cushing supply issues clear up.

However, with food and energy, at least for now, remaining a relative value story, this could largely be the other currencies deflating rather than the dollar inflating.

The US is a large importer of finished products and with relatively weak aggregate demand here this means downward price pressures on those who export to the US to sustain their export volumes and market share.

And with US unit labor costs not rising, US companies can price aggressively overseas and keep foreign margins under pressure as well.

So looks to me like the world shortage of aggregate demand/dangerously high unemployment will continue for a considerable period of time, now exacerbated by rising food and energy costs which takes purchasing power from high propensity to consume individuals and transfers it to low propensity to consume states, corporations, investment funds, etc.

While at the same time this (at least for the near future) relative value story gets treated like an inflation story by most of the world’s governments, who are consequently prone to take measures to further reduce aggregate demand.

No nation wins in this process, just some losing less than others.

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MMT’s Professor L. Randall Wray makes the NY Times!

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Ignore the Raters

By L. Randall Wray

April 18 (NYT)

L. Randall Wray is a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a senior scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. He is the author of“Understanding Modern Money,” and blogs at New Economic Perspectives.

In what appears to be an attempt to influence the political debate in Washington over federal government deficits, Standards & Poor’s rating firm downgraded U.S. debt to negative from stable. Yes, the raters who blessed virtually every toxic waste subprime security they saw with AAA ratings now see problems with sovereign government debt.

The best thing to do is to ignore the raters — as markets usually do when sovereign debt gets downgraded — but this time stock indexes fell, probably because of the uncertain prospects concerning government budgeting. After all, we barely avoided a government shutdown earlier this month, and with S.&P. joining the fray who knows whether the government will continue to pay its bills?

Mind you, this has nothing to do with economics, government solvency or involuntary default. A sovereign government can always make payments as they come due by crediting bank accounts — something recognized by Chairman Ben Bernanke when he said the Fed spends by marking up the size of the reserve accounts of banks.

Similarly Chairman Alan Greenspan said that Social Security can never go broke because government can meet all its obligations by “creating money.”

Instead, sovereign government spending is constrained by budgeting procedure and by Congressionally imposed debt limits. In other words, by self-imposed constraints rather than by market constraints.

Government needs to be concerned about pressures on inflation and the exchange rate should its spending become excessive. And it should avoid “crowding out” private initiative by moving too many resources to our public sector. However, with high unemployment and idle plant and equipment, no one can reasonably argue that these dangers are imminent.

Strangely enough, the ratings agencies recognized long ago that sovereign currency-issuing governments do not really face solvency constraints. A decade ago Moody’s downgraded Japan to Aaa3, generating a sharp reaction from the government. The raters back-tracked and said they were not rating ability to pay, but rather the prospects for inflation and currency depreciation. After 10 more years of running deficits, Japan’s debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio is 200 percent, it borrows at nearly zero interest rates, it makes every payment that comes due, its yen remains strong and deflation reigns.

While I certainly hope we do not repeat Japan’s economic experience of the past two decades, I think the impact of downgrades by raters of U.S. sovereign debt will have a similar impact here: zip.

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What happened to Q1?

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This is typical of recent announcements:

“With most of the news on 1Q growth now in, the GDP “bean count” looks even softer than it did a couple of weeks ago. The most recent disappointments have come on the export side—with trade now set to subtract significantly from growth in the quarter—and from inventories. Consequently, we are downgrading our real GDP growth estimate to 1¾% (annualized), from 2½% previously (and from 3½% not too long ago).”

So what went wrong?

Maybe, as I guessed at just prior to year end:

The effect of world austerity was underestimated, particularly in Europe and China?

The effects of income channel from QE2 (remember the Fed turning over $79 billion to the tsy that the economy would have earned if the Fed hadn’t bought/owned those securities?) were underestimated?

The effect of the year end tax adjustment was less than anticipated, as work for pay that was eliminated maybe had higher propensities to consume than the 2%, one year FICA reduction?

Rising gasoline prices slowed things down some?

Rising food price as we burn up our food supply for fuel wreak havoc world wide?

So how about Q2, which is starting about as high as Q1 did?

High food and gasoline prices continue.

Supply disruptions from the Japan.

The Fed owns more tsy secs and has thereby removed more interest income from the economy.

World austerity intensifies, now including the US.

China’s inflation fight intensifies.

And business top line growth starting to falter from modest levels?

And this time the fiscal safety nets are in jeopardy as govt’s believe they have ‘run out of money’ and need to tighten up, with Japan now the prime example, looking at tax hikes to ‘pay for’ earthquake damage.

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China Daily | Zhou Pledges More Tightening as China Raises Reserve Ratios

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As previously discussed, changing reserve ratios and the like does nothing more than raise the cost of funds to the banks, much like a ‘normal’ rate hike.

And, also as previously discussed, higher rates more often than not add to inflationary pressures, rather than subtract from them.

Ultimately, it is the fiscal adjustments that bite, including reduced deficit spending (both proactive and, more common, via automatic stabilizers, particularly increased tax receipts due to nominal growth) and reduced state lending, all of which is in progress. Reductions in state lending are also, functionally, best considered ‘fiscal’ measures.

This all typically results in a very hard landing.

China Raises Reserve Ratio to Curb Inflation as Zhou Pledges More to Come

April 17 (Bloomberg) — China increased banks’ reserve requirements to lock up cash and cool inflation, and central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said monetary tightening will continue for “some time.”

Reserve ratios will rise a half point from April 21, the People’s Bank of China said on its website yesterday, pushing the requirement to a record 20.5 percent for the biggest lenders. The move came less than two weeks after an interest-rate increase. Zhou sees no “absolute” limit on how high reserve requirements can go, he said April 16.

The nation’s fifth interest-rate increase since the financial crisis may come as soon as next month after inflation accelerated in March to the fastest pace since 2008, Societe Generale SA said. Chinese policy makers may also consider allowing faster appreciation in the yuan, described by the U.S. as “substantially” undervalued, to reduce the cost of imported commodities such as oil.

Higher reserve requirements “will help tighten monetary conditions and prevent banks from lending aggressively in the coming month,” said Liu Li-Gang, an Australia & New Zealand Banking Group economist in Hong Kong who formerly worked for the World Bank. Policy makers may also increasingly rely on the yuan to contain “imported inflation,” Liu added.

Geithner’s Case

The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.4 percent as of 11:09 a.m. local time. Non-deliverable yuan forwards were little changed, indicating expectations for the currency to rise about 2.3 percent in the next 12 months from 6.5293 per dollar.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner says a stronger Chinese currency would both counter inflation within the Asian nation and aid efforts to reduce economic imbalances that contributed to the global financial crisis.

The yuan has gained about 4.5 percent against the dollar since June last year, when China scrapped a crisis policy of keeping the currency unchanged against the greenback. Analysts’ median forecast is for the currency to climb to 6.3 per dollar by year end.

Speaking in Washington yesterday, PBOC Deputy Governor Yi Gang said the yuan is close to being freely usable, which would allow it to be included in the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights basket. He said April 15 that a gradual appreciation of the currency would help his country overcome inflation.

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