Forex-swap market to be launched
(Shenzhen Daily)
Updated: 2006-04-17 11:06
The government will officially launch a market for swapping the yuan and
foreign currencies April 24, the country's sole interbank market said April 14.
The swap market would be based on the interbank market, the China Foreign
Exchange Trade System (CFETS), and would initially have 54 members, including
the Shanghai branches of Citigroup and HSBC Holdings Plc., it said.
"Members can swap the yuan and foreign exchange, with the purpose of hedging
and adjusting position portfolios," the CFETS, a unit of the central bank, said
in the statement published on its Web site.
Other members include the country's five biggest banks: Bank of China,
Agricultural Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China
Construction Bank Corp. and Bank of Communications.
The move came after the market launched onshore yuan foreign exchange
forwards last August. The central bank had said then that it would allow banks
that had been given permission to engage in forwards to conduct the swap
business six months later.
China revalued the yuan by 2.1 percent to 8.11 per U.S. dollar last July, and
freed it from a dollar peg to float within managed bands.
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