Chinese Offshore RMB Currency and Bond Markets： The Role of Hong Kong

This paper discusses the role of Hong Kong in China’s grand scheme to build up the RMB as a global reserve currency.We highlight the economic importance of Hong Kong to China in terms of channeling foreign direct investment into China,some of which,in the future,will be denominated in the RMB.We discuss the development of China’s RMB currency swap and deposit markets in Hong Kong.These offshore markets enable the RMB to trade freely, setting the stage for the RMB to become fully convertible and allowing market forces to play a role in pricing the value of the RMB,and help in the development of the RMB-denominated bond(or dim sum bond)market in Hong Kong.Finally,we present evidence of the phenomenal growth of the dim sum bond market in Hong Kong,which can further enhance and strengthen the use of the RMB outside China.     

香港跨境贸易人民币结算面面观

全球金融危机爆发以来,人民币跨境贸易结算特别是针对港澳跨境贸易人民币结算的政策频繁出台,这是为推动我国与周边国家和地区经贸关系发展、规避汇率风险、改善贸易条件的一大举措。本文以香港跨境贸易人民币结算为分析对象,分别对香港和内地两地将受到的影响进行深入分析。人民币结算将增加香港进出口企业的汇率风险、香港金融业在短期和长期也将会受不同程度的影响;内地外贸企业则能有效规避汇率风险、节约结算成本,人民币结算在长期也将为人民币国际化作出贡献。但是,跨境贸易人民币结算所面临的内外阻力更加不容忽视。     

后危机时期的人民币国际化问题研究

后危机时期,在东亚共识和清迈协议的框架下,东亚货币金融合作短期内难以取得实质性突破,汇率去美元化、单一货币主导或区域货币联盟的时机均不成熟。人民币应着眼于推进周边化,借道中国——东盟自由贸易区发展"泛人民币"次区域货币合作,扩大境外有效流通区域,并加强香港国际金融中心建设,拓宽海外人民币投资渠道,为参与下一阶段的东亚货币整合准备条件。     

The internationalization of the RMB: where does the RMB currently stand in the process of internationalization

Renminbi (RMB) internationalisation has been a topic for lively discussion since China accelerated its promotion of the RMB's status as a leading international currency in 2009. China has undertaken some concrete steps to push forward RMB internationalisation such as the Pilot Scheme of Cross‐Border Trade Settlement in the RMB, RMB Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor, Dim Sum bonds, and bilateral currency swap agreements. Where the RMB stands in the process of becoming an international currency is assessed by reviewing the progress China has made and analysing the challenges China faces in internationalising its currency. Based on this assessment, a roadmap for internationalising the RMB is drawn from two perspectives: the functions of the RMB as an international currency and the scope of RMB use in the global financial system. A possible roadmap for RMB internationalisation is to begin from RMB settlement in cross‐border trade, followed by regionalisation of the RMB, and finally globalisation. With respect to achieving the functions of an international currency, the RMB should first become a settlement currency, then a denomination currency, and lastly, a reserve currency.     

Corruption,costs, and family: Chinese capital flight, 1984–2014

Since 1984, the foreign debt of the Peoples' Republic of China has increased at a greater rate than would be explained by changes in the country's current account, foreign direct investment and reserve holdings. This pattern is consistent with large-scale outflow of financial capital, commonly referred to as capital flight. Since 2005, capital flight has accelerated reaching $425 billion (plus or minus $60 billion) in 2014 alone. This study provides three estimates for capital flight from China for the period 1984 through 2014 using both Cuddington's balance of payments and more inclusive residual measures. These measures are adjusted to reflect the legitimate assets of the Chinese banking industry, mis-invoicing of China's trade with its major trading partners (especially Hong Kong), exchange rate changes, and the failure of official debt data to capture certain bank transactions. Based on these estimates, it is concluded that capital controls have little long-term effect on the volume of capital flight, Hong Kong is increasingly a pipeline for capital flight from the mainland, and that ‘traditional’ explanations do not apply to China's capital flight over the last decade. Finally, corruption, transaction costs, and facilitating migration are considered as possible explanations of the recent acceleration of Chinese capital flight.     

香港人民币离岸市场的发展与预期风险

全球金融危机的爆发使中国货币当局意识到推进人民币国际化的必要性与紧迫性。由于资本项目的未完全开放和人民币尚未实现可自由兑换,为了稳步推行人民币国际化进程,香港成为发展人民币离岸市场的首选之地。伴随一系列相关政策措施的出台,香港人民币离岸市场日益发展壮大。本文在考察人民币跨境贸易结算试点实施以来香港人民币离岸市场流动性的形成、债券市场的演进和金融衍生品市场的现状的基础上,总结了现阶段香港人民币离岸市场发展的特点,探讨了香港人民币离岸市场在未来发展中可能面临的主要问题和预期风险,并提出了相应的对策与建议。     

A Eurasian Economic Vision for the Twenty-first Century

Widespread corruption in mainland China adversely affects the overall economy in general and international business in particular. Prior to the establishment of the Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) in 1974, corruption was also rampant in Hong Kong. The ICAC effectively cleaned corruption in Hong Kong within a short period of time. Hong Kong's success in this area has prompted the Chinese government to learn from Hong Kong's experience. This article reviews the factors that contributed to Hong Kong's success in fighting corruption and discusses whether China can learn from the Hong Kong experience. From this, we can conclude that, first, Hong Kong's experience demonstrates that a corruption‐prone culture can be changed in a relatively short period of time; second, in order for China to learn from Hong Kong's experience, there must be substantial changes in China's political and economic institutions.     

关于《CEPA》与香港对外贸易发展的研究

本文围绕《CEPA》为主题,详细描述了《CEPA》的签署历程、特点,并且对《CEPA》签署后香港对外贸易的发展进行了详尽的分析。最后针对《CEPA》尚存在的问题,提出了将来进一步的补充《CEPA》内容的提议,以求使内地与香港的经济、贸易合作关系更加紧密。     

国外历史经验对中国国际金融中心合理定位的借鉴

目前最有希望成为未来中国国际金融中心的地区有北京、上海、深圳/香港,三地各有优势。本文回溯了英国伦敦、美国纽约、新家坡和巴哈马四个著名国际金融中心的历史变迁。以史为鉴,来指导我国的国际金融中心的定位和建设。     

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER TO CHINA BY HONG KONG'S CROSS‐BORDER GARMENT FIRMS

Hong Kong manufacturers have historically been one of the main sources of foreign direct investment to China, but their contribution to the transfer of technology to the mainland has been questioned due to the generally labor‐ rather than capital‐intensive, low‐value‐adding activities they perform there. Using data from eighty‐four Hong Kong‐based garment manufacturers that have invested directly in mainland China, this paper examines the role of Hong Kong FDI in the transfer of technology to China. Analyses show that Hong Kong garment firms are in fact human‐capital‐intensive and are endowed with valuable managerial technology and, moreover, act as effective channels for the transfer of such technology to mainland China.     

Renminbi Derivatives： Recent Development and Issues

This study reviews the developments in the onshore and offshore renminbi derivatives markets. The onshore market has seen a rapid build‐up in the market infrastructure and price discovery mechanism in the past year, with empirical evidence suggesting that its pricing is increasingly determined by financial fundamentals, such as the covered interest rate parity. However, the growth of the market has been restrained by restrictions on the participant base, limited variations in the RMB/US$ exchange rate, market participants’lack of technical capacity and experience, and inadequate supporting financial market infrastructure. The non‐deliverable forward (NDF) market, concentrated in Hong Kong and Singapore, is more developed, but has the drawback that its pricing is not tied to financial fundamentals. The comparison between onshore and offshore markets suggests that two issues are of particular importance for future derivatives market development in China: the balance between regulation and development, and the relationship between onshore and offshore markets.     

Regional division of labor from agglomeration economies’ perspective: some evidence

This study aims at elaborating the evolving degree of completeness of outward investment of manufacturing and its consequence from the view of regional development since the People’s Republic of China opened her door to foreign direct investment. After two decades of Hong Kong’s progressive manufacturing cross-border processing of labor-intensive operations performed in the proximate Guangdong province, a regional division of labor has developed by taking advantages of the agglomeration economies of the Hong Kong-Pearl River Delta region.The analysis is conducted based on such a perspective using the 1998 data of a population of 2,441 electronics joint ventures in Guangdong. Findings suggested that firms’ location (density) distribution, via exploiting the agglomeration economies, followed a pattern well explained by a simple gravity model with Hong Kong as the main core. The existing Pearl River Delta cities and the associated cluster economies have also demonstrated attraction for foreign direct investment. Firm size and age effects were also investigated. The findings confirmed the economic contributions of electronics joint ventures, the small ones in particular, to the development of Guangdong and the Hong Kong-Pearl River Delta region. Some suggestions on regional policy coordination were initiated.     

Renminbi internationalisation and China’s financial development

There is a widespread view that China’s currency can be used in international markets only after the liberalisation of China’s domestic financial markets and the opening of its capital account. Yet evidently the renminbi’s internationalisation is preceding these so-called preconditions. This article assesses the tensions inherent in renminbi internationalisation starting at a transitional period in China’s financial development. For now, effective capital controls allow the Chinese authorities to retain regulated deposit and lending rates, quantitative credit guidance and bond market rationing. Relaxation of the capital controls would put these policies at risk. Reserve requirements can be extended to bank inflows from the offshore market but only at a price.     

The China money puzzle: will devaluation of the yuan help or hurt the Hong Kong dollar?

A Chinese yuan devaluation could affect the stability of the Hong Kong dollar. This paper studies two linkages. The first is that trade balance effect is studied through a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The result shows that the net change in Hong Kong's foreign reserve after a yuan devaluation is, in fact, negligible. The second is that psychological effect is studied by a survey of financial market participants. In spite of the small trade balance effect, all respondents believe that a yuan devaluation would lead to a panic selling of Hong Kong assets. Therefore, a yuan devaluation is bad for the Hong Kong dollar primarily through market psychology.     

How do firms combine different internationalisation modes? A multivariate probit approach

Most of the literature on the relationship between firm’s participation in international markets and firm heterogeneity focuses on export and foreign direct investment. This paper considers a wider range of forms of internationalisation that firms could combine into different patterns. With the purpose of analysing the selection of heterogeneous firms into different internationalisation patterns, we jointly model the decisions on the forms of internationalisation through a multivariate probit. This model allows us to avoid any a priori assumption about the firm’s behaviour. In this context we study the complementarity/substitutability relationships between forms of internationalisation. The results obtained show that: (i) neglecting some forms could lead to an incomplete representation about the firm’s internationalisation strategy, (ii) different firm’s characteristics influence the choice of internationalisation pattern, i.e. some types of firm are more prone to choosing one type of process over another, (iii) complementarity between forms of internationalisation seems to be preferred over substitution, but some heterogeneity also arises in this context.     

外资银行从此“被困”——外资银行法人化对金融产业结构发展的影响分析

通过分析外资银行法人化的进程,揭示这一国家政策的真正意义,在促进金融产业结构优化的同时也减少不利因素的产生,稳定国家金融局面,达到良性发展的用意。     

香港与伦敦、纽约国际金融中心比较研究

从金融中心的形成与发展历程、金融中心的运行体系以及金融中心的成长环境等三个方面将香港与伦敦、纽约国际金融中心进行比较研究,以此探寻香港的比较优势及劣势,并提出香港打造世界级国际金融中心的战略选择。     

Institutions and FDI location choice: The role of cultural distances

Using an extensive data set on foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) in the Chinese mainland, we compare the sensitivities of the location choice of foreign direct investment (FDI) from six major source countries/areas (Hong Kong, Taiwan, US, EU, Japan and Korea) toward the variation in the strength of economic institutions across China's regions. It is found that FIEs from the source countries/areas that are culturally more remote from China often exhibit a stronger aversion to regions with weaker economic institutions. Moreover, this pattern is often more salient when FDI takes the form of fully-owned enterprises (FOEs) than when it takes the form of joint ventures (JVs).     

香港国际金融中心的比较优势——兼论上海金融中心所面临的挑战和机遇

作为亚太国际金融中心,香港面临来自国际及中国内地金融中心的挑战和竞争。本文探讨了香港金融证券业的个别特定金融机构和专业人才的比较优势。特别是《更紧密经贸关系安排》(CE-PA)增强了香港与内地金融证券市场和客户的接近度,促进了香港金融证券业专业人才的培训和交流、香港中小银行的合并以及证券市场的融资和交易。本文进而提出,一方面,香港需要与中国内地经贸合作而增强其作为国际金融中心的经济实力;另一方面,香港以泛珠三角地区为平台,上海以长江三角地区为平台,可以促进香港与中国内地的金融证券业相互补充和相互帮助,并带动亚太区域金融中心的互动。通过竞争与协调,加强金融监管合作和融通,进而有效地利用有限的经济金融资源。     

外资撤离对我国银行业的影响——以房地产市场为传导渠道

自2002年起,外资基于人民币升值及中国资产回报高的预期而不断流入我国。这些资金多数涌入了股票市场和房地产市场。自金融危机以来,外资开始有计划地撤离中国市场。对依赖于外部融资的房地产市场而言,外资的流入与流出有较大的影响力。外资通过影响房地产市场,对我国银行业也有着间接的影响。本文从以房地产市场为传导渠道的角度,对此进行了分析。