Chinese Yuan Eases From 2-day High Against Dollar
During Asian deals on Wednesday, the Chinese yuan eased from a 2-day high against the US dollar after a report showed that China’s trade surplus halved in February.
China logged a trade surplus of $7.6 billion in February, compared with the $14.2 billion surplus in January, the General Administration of Customs said. Exports jumped 45.7% in February from a year earlier, following a 21% rise in the previous month. Imports, meanwhile, climbed 44.7%, slowing from the 85.5% increase a month ago.
On a monthly basis, exports dropped 13.7% in February while imports were down 8.9%.
The yuan that climbed to a 2-day high of 6.8270 per dollar at 9:15 pm ET eased shortly thereafter and touched 6.8310 by about 11:10 pm ET. As of now, the pair is worth 6.8305.
The People’s Bank of China has set today’s central parity rate for the dollar-yuan pair at 6.8264. The pair is allowed to strengthen or weaken 0.5% from the parity rate.
China has effectively re-pegged its exchange rate at around 6.8 yuan per dollar since mid-2008 to help its exporters during the global financial crisis and is under intense pressure from the United States and Europe to abandon the peg.
Yi Gang, director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange of China said yesterday that the yuan’s exchange rate will be kept at a reasonable, balanced level while the government continues to improve the currency’s mechanism. The currency’s exchange rate is decided by market demand, he said. There are different opinions within China about the yuan’s exchange rate, he said.
